Revelations
by Marcus Gaudry
Summary: Aware that Harrison has begun to show signs of a Dark Passenger, Dexter begins to share the Code of Harry with his son. Prentiss discovers that she knows Will's new partner in DC Metro. Once Reid, Garcia, and Lynch learn that Barnes is on to them, they are sent to Miami to review the Bay Harbor Butcher.
1. Chapter 1

_San Diego, California – August_

The new Castle/Fisher Estate was established and finally very nearly settled. Dexter Morgan, now known as Frank Castle (a name which was a source of unending amusement for his son Harrison), finished installing the air conditioner in his office; the small, airtight tube containing the blood soaked Q-tip held in the place where his blood slides used to be kept. With the AC unit installed, he turned his attention to his office computer. Now that home was more or less settled, he had a business to establish, and more importantly a family crisis to resolve.

Over the past few days, Dexter had been watching Harrison very closely. On the night before their move from Tijuana, Hannah (now known as Jennifer Fisher) showed him what she found packing up Harrison's room; a box containing the collar of a dog she said went missing from the neighborhood just days before Jacob Elway started his campaign in Miami, and the same tube with Q-tip that was now in Dexter's AC unit. That was part of the reason Hannah had Astor set up the delivery and invitation. It was also precisely the kind of thing Dexter was hoping to protect Harrison from; the most important reason why he chose to fake his death and go into hiding from everyone he possibly could. It didn't take a lot of deductive reasoning to piece together what it meant; LaGuerta could have figured it out even without Hannah's prompting or the wordless mutterings of the Dark Passenger pointing out the obvious. Whatever curse Dexter had, it was passed on to Harrison, and for many of the same reasons. Given what his son was put through with the death of Rita at the hands of the Trinity Killer Arthur Mitchell, it came as no real surprise to Dexter; he was hoping against hope that by staying away, he might keep Harrison's exposure to a minimum and Harrison would have a chance at a life resembling a normal one. Clearly he was wrong.

After this revelation, Dexter's Dark Passenger was deftly dancing in deep recesses in his heart with deadly delight. In a strange sort of way, this was actually a welcome development; after so many years of inactivity – Jacob Elway being the obvious exception – it felt as if he had woken from a long, deep sleep. He was invigorated, refreshed, all his senses as sharp as his blades once were. Watching Harrison, his Dark Passenger became increasingly more active; everything in him could sense the Curse blooming within his son. Despite the glee the Dark Passenger seemed to find in the prospect of passing the Code on like a legacy written in Blood and Justice, Dexter himself felt a little ill at the thought.

 _Now I have an idea of what Harry must have gone through._ Dexter thought to himself. One thing was clear; this was one battle that was waging inside of him. Hannah was right; he really had no choice but to pass on the Code in order to keep Harrison safe.

 _"Are you out of your ever fucking mind?"_ The memory of Debra challenged. _"You have a chance here to get Harrison some real professional help. Maybe dad fucked you over beyond any hope, but you can end the cycle."_

"That was the whole point to my leaving everything behind in the first place, Deb." Dexter replied dryly. "Evidently that didn't work." Dexter booted up his computer. Although there was no doubt he had to address the Harrison issue soon, he also had some details and specifics to work out if he wanted his Courier business to succeed. "It's clear that Harrison is already on the same Path as me. The only thing I can really do now is show him how to navigate the Path to some kind of positive end."

 _"You'll want to check your motivations, son."_ The Memory of Harry chimed in as a patient caveat. _"The Code was designed to keep you safe, not to pass on like some kind of legacy."_

"Never mind that Dr. Voegel would have said different; my goal here is to use the Code to keep Harrison safe." Dexter answered. Even as the words were coming out of his mouth, he knew he was manipulating the truth. While it was true that his main motive was to protect his son, the legacy factor was very much a part of it, too. It was also true that Dr. Evelyn Voegel, when she was alive, was very keen on having the Code she helped to design passed on. In all honesty, however, that was really just a convenient excuse.

 _"Justify it however you like, Dexter; it's not as if I can stop you."_ Harry said, sounding much like the mentor that Dexter remembered. _"Just be sure to keep your priorities straight."_

"I will," Dexter said. Then he added, as if to prove his point, "Now be quiet. I have to focus on developing a career and livelihood as part of my new identity."

 _Frank Castle, owner and operator of Castle Couriers_ , Dexter thought. As far as the Harrison situation was concerned, things were already in place to deal with that. It would begin tomorrow; after father and son took off for a weekend camp-out.

The next day, Dexter took Harrison out on a camping trip; ostensibly to make up for the lost years of bonding. Hannah knew better of course, but she allowed the trip to be just the two of them.

"Do what you have to do." She whispered in his ear as they embraced in a farewell.

"I will." He whispered back.

"Hey Dad, hurry up!" Harrison shouted from the van that would soon enough be serving as Dexter's company delivery vehicle.

"I'm coming!" Dexter called back cheerfully. He stole a parting kiss from Hannah and turned around to make way for the van.

"Do you have everything?" Hannah called out after him. Dexter knew exactly what she meant. He waved a hand in the air without turning back or breaking stride.

"I sure do!" he reassured as he got to the van, got into the driver seat, and drove away.

Somewhere along the way on the interstate, small talk died off and they both fell silent. Dexter contemplated bringing up the evidence of what appeared to be Harrison's new hobby, but decided instead to wait until they had camp all sorted out.

"Hey," he suggested, "how about we turn on some music?" He pointed at the radio. Harrison rolled his eyes in mock disdain at the low-tech means of entertainment and clicked it on. The song that was playing was one that Dexter had never heard before; some sort of new wave rock band. Surprisingly enough, Dexter found that he somewhat liked this tune; especially the vocalist. Her voice was both haunting and haunted at the same time; it was seductive, yet soothing. She had a hypnotic effect on him.

"They're pretty good, huh?" Harrison said, breaking Dexter's trance. "They're called Prettymouth. The singers name is Shelley Mason. The song you're hearing now is called Crush; it's from their second album."

"It works well as a love song." Dexter commented. "It's almost romantic, in a dark kind of way."

Harrison laughed. "I thought so at first, too." He agreed. "Then I listened a lot more closely and figured out it was about a stalker, as if from the stalker's point of view. I know it's not a new angle, but they do it well. I heard once that the lyrics were based off a letter Shelley got from a fan."

"That's... interesting." Dexter said. He never actually got too excited about music, and this wasn't so much an exception, but there was something about the song that kind of resonated with him; albeit for what was evidently the wrong reason.

"That was California's own Prettymouth and their latest hit 'Crush'," the radio announcer told them. "Which brings us to a little bit of breaking news about Shelley Mason following her tumultuous adventures leading up to the Rock Block independent music festival in Bakersfield. We already knew that the FBI were in town investigating a series of murders of several people who can in one way or another be considered a threat to Mason, and speculation has been made that Shelley is involved in setting up the murders. What started off as a wild speculation was quickly taken into serious consideration by the Feds, and spokesperson Agent Jennifer Jareau released a press conference in San Bernardino saying very little to confirm or refute whether or not Shelley Mason is actually suspected of anything. What is known however, that the siren was indeed taken into custody just before the press conference took place."

Dexter's mind locked on the name Jennifer Jareau. That was the name of the Special Agent he first met in Maine, and was part of the team that he had set himself into the jaws of in Miami in order to get to Astor. Not long ago, she was in California. That meant the team was in on was here, too. That included David Rossi, Luke Alvez, Emily Prentiss, Penelope Garcia, and most alarmingly Dr. Spencer Reid.

Rossi made for a worthy adversary; he had a wealth of experience in the field and though his approach was different, he was every bit the veteran Profiler as Frank Lundy. Alvez was easy enough to work; he was by no means a fool, but was almost painfully predictable. He didn't deal with Prentiss directly, so he couldn't say for certain what she was like. She did, however prove she could lead her team effectively. No doubt her background as an INTERPOL spy made her a threat. Jareau had an eerily similar background to Prentiss, and she knew how to use her good looks as a means of disarming anyone; that made her extremely dangerous. Garcia, their tech expert, was nothing short of a genius; her security protocols were nearly impossible to circumvent. As it stood, Dexter could only hope she didn't catch on to his activity on her system. And then there was the good Doctor Reid.

Dr. Spencer Reid was different to say the least. In the one interview Dexter had with him, Dexter was sure the Doctor could see right through him; nearly from the start of their conversation even the Dark Passenger was near panic, as if his cover, the story he was using – albeit based in part in truth – and even the Code were being pierced like a sheer, barely translucent veil. It was in Reid's eyes, Dexter saw. It was almost as if Reid had something inside as well; not a Passenger, but something; and that something was able to recognize the Dark Passenger as easily as Dexter could see whatever was in Spencer Reid. The only thing Dexter had n his favor that day was evidence; or more accurately lack of it.

"...was promptly released from custody, and has declined to comment as to whether or not she was aware that Rodriguez, a member of her personal security detail, was in fact the one killing off her opponents..."

 _"Don't go digging into what the Feds are doing now, Dex."_ Deb warned. _"They were on a case that had nothing to do with you, and they probably have no idea you're even in the state. Leave this the fuck alone."_

 _"She's right, son. There's no reason to go poking your nose into the affairs of the FBI."_ Harry agreed. _"Doing that will only risk exposing yourself. Remember the whole point of the Code is to not be conspicuous, to not stick out, and to blend in."_

"I know; you're right." Dexter said absently.

"I thought you'd agree, dad." Harrison said, apparently pleased. He had said something that Dexter had missed while lost in his own head, but evidently his son hadn't noticed. "Odds are she knows the media is going to play it like she's some kind Jezebel, so she's gonna work that angle to her best advantage. That's what she does to stay in the spotlight."

p class="MsoNormal"Not sure how to respond, Dexter just nodded and grunted what he hoped sounded like knowing agreement. As the announcer went on to other news, Harrison snapped off the radio and began to fiddle with his mobile device.

"Aha, here it is." He said finally. "I thought I knew the name Bobby Rodriguez from somewhere. He was briefly an MMA fighter. He showed a lot of promise at first, until he got a concussion in a fight and doctors found some kind of blood vessel defect in his brain. Do you think maybe that defect drove him to what he did?"

Dexter glanced at his son as he drove. This was interesting. Harrison was consulting him on murder; more precisely a serial killer. Was he looking for instruction, or is it just a passing interest? Either way, it was a kind of bonding, Dexter supposed.

 _Not the healthiest of subject matter, but at least it can be an honest conversation, possibly._ He thought. Was it so wrong that he liked the idea of being able to really be open and honest with someone about his true field of expertise?

"Well, I suppose it's possible," Dexter answered. "Maybe that defect screwed up his blood circulation and fucked up his reasoning, or something. Sorry about the language; I was just thinking how this is kind of like how your Aunt Deb and I used to talk about cases."

"It's okay," Harrison said, waving off the curse word. "So I was just wondering; how would you have handled someone like that when you...you know...killed people?"

"What do you mean?" Dexter asked back, interested. He wasn't trying to hide his past from his son; he knew that Harrison knew about it. He just wanted to be sure he was hearing the question right. It was obvious this was a difficult subject for Harrison to breach, and thought it might make for a good bridge into discussing the real purpose behind the trip.

"Well," Harrison started, "mom told me that when you did it, you had a kind of criteria for how you chose. Would Bobby have met those criteria?"

 _"He's asking about the Code."_ Harry said.

 _"You're in the shit now, Dex,"_ Deb added. _"You have to sink or fucking swim now, dear brother."_

Dexter saw an opportunity here that maybe both Harry and Debra missed. "What do you think?" He asked.

"I'm not so sure." Harrison replied. "I mean, he did murder four people; but three of those four people were out to hurt someone he loved. Also, if he had a physical brain defect then maybe it would be better to let the cops catch him and put him in a hospital. Maybe they can fix the brain issue and he can rehabilitate. I think maybe he should be given a chance; he might not be bad, just very confused."

The way Dexter saw it that was a very good answer; it suggested there was a glimmer of humanity in his son. That was Hannah's influence; Dexter had no doubt about that. Also important, it demonstrated to Dexter that Harrison already had the makings of a clear sense of justice which could illuminate whatever darkness there is inside of him. For his own part, Dexter would probably have looked no farther than the fact that Rodriguez killed four people.

"That makes sense." Dexter said. "It's a good answer. That reminds me; there's something we need to talk about once we set up camp." He saw Harrison blanch a little in his seat. "You're not in any trouble, I can promise you that. Let's just wait until we get there, okay?"

"Sure, dad," Harrison replied, uncertain.

 _"I have to admit, Dexter,"_ Harry said. _"I'm starting to think you might be doing the right thing by passing on the Code."_

"Thank you," Dexter said, to both Harrison and Harry.

Once camp was set up, Harrison asked what it was that Dexter wanted to talk about. By then, Dexter had started a campfire, and motioned for Harrison to sit beside him.

"Tell me, son; what was the dog's name?" He asked.

"What do you mean?" Harrison asked, putting a reasonably convincing confused looked on his face; he was already getting well versed in mimicking the emotional expressions of normal people, Dexter noted. If he hadn't had to learn the same skills, he might have not noticed the facade. "What dog are you talking about?"

Dexter reached into his pocket and produced both the dog collar and the tube with the bloodied Q-tip inside of it. "This dog, Harrison," Dexter replied. "The one form your old neighborhood that 'went missing' just before that mess that brought me back to Miami."

Harrison averted his gaze into the fire. He knew there was no point in denying he had any idea where the items came from; Dexter caught the look in his eyes as he showed them to Harrison. He mumbled something that Dexter didn't quite catch. He asked Harrison to speak clearly.

"I said," Harrison answered hoarsely before clearing his throat. "I said, I thought I forgot those back in Tijuana."

"That would be careless, and your hiding spot was sloppy; those are both good ways to get caught." Dexter said sternly. "But we'll get to that in a moment; first I want to know the dog's name."

"The dog was called Rico." Harrison answered. Then he hastily continued, "but he deserved it, dad. Rico was a bad dog; and not just because he barked at everything that moved and kept everyone on the block up all night long. I actually saw Rico attack and bite a little kid in a park. I guess he got out of his yard or something. His owners denied it was their dog that bit the kid, of course."

"So you killed Rico to punish the owners." Dexter said.

"No, that wasn't it." Harrison explained. "They weren't bad people, just bad dog owners. I killed Rico because he attacked a little kid and that meant he might do it again. So I got a hold of some dope and put it into some hamburger meat to sedate Rico, and then I cut his throat open. I wore some tissue coveralls to make sure I didn't get bloody, and then stuffed Rico into a storm drain. Since it was a rainy time of year, the rains washed him farther down the pipes, and then the rats would have gotten to him. The tissue coveralls dissolved in the water"

 _"That's not bad,"_ Harry commented. _"Plenty of mistakes, but he already gets the idea."_

"Mexico cops aren't stupid, but there's lots of shit they don't give a damn about." Harrison said. "They weren't going to put much effort into finding a fucking dog."

 _"So he worked the system."_ Debra said. _"That kid of yours is a real chip off the old fuckblock, ain't he?"_

Dexter ignored her. "Okay, so you saw it as the way to solve a problem, and figured out how to cover your tracks. You saw an opportunity and got lucky. Like I said on the way here, I'm not mad and neither is Hannah. I just have two questions. First, why did you keep the collar and the Q-tip?"

"So I'd remember that I did something good." Harrison answered. "And because there was a kind of...I don't know..."

"A kind of rush?" Dexter suggested. Both were answers he expected to hear; they were, in many ways, a reflection of his own reasons. "Believe me, I can relate."

Harrison smiled, "Daddy's box," he said nodding in memory. "I think I can guess your next question. The reason I tried to hide it from you and mom was because I thought you'd be disappointed; I know you both wanted something different for me."

 _"Does this sound familiar to you, Dexter?"_ Harry asked.

Dexter ignored him; never mind that he was right. Harry always was. "Well, that's true." He admitted. "But now things are as they are. I thought if I stayed away, maybe the darkness that drives me might pass you by even after all you went through." _Just like Harry when he took me in, but in reverse._ "I guess I was wrong. Now I have to know if there were any others; or any people?"

"No" Harrison answered flatly. "I thought about it, but no. No other dogs deserved it, and if I went to people I'd probably get caught; I know that would break you and mom's hearts."

 _Then there's still time. There's a chance for the Code to take hold._

"You said earlier today that Hannah told you I had a set of criteria for how I choose who lives and who dies." Dexter began. "Actually, it's more like a Code of Conduct for life; a way to balance out living our real lives and a life that we put forward as cover to make sure we don't get caught. In fact the First Rule of the Code is Don't Get Caught; every rule after that is to make sure we Don't Get Caught. It's worked for me so far, it will work for you. Before you do anything else, you will master the Code that I will pass on to you; the Code will become more than just a set of rules; it will become a way of life."


	2. Chapter 2 Promotions and Assignments

_September: Washington, DC_

Following the Lewiston case, the entire team had a little bit of downtime; they all took advantage of it in their own ways. Tara spent some time with family, Rossi took advantage of an opportunity to go on a wine tasting festival. Matt and JJ set up a couples date, and somehow Prentiss managed to get herself roped into showing up where they were supposed to meet. How that happened Emily couldn't quite figure out; her best guess was that she figured even being the fifth wheel on a double date had to better than going to whatever geek movie marathon it was that Reid, Garcia, and Kevin were going to together.

It wasn't so much that Emily thought herself too cool for them; far from it, in fact. In many ways she was quite the nerd herself; but they were talking about costumes of their favorite characters, their favorite installment of the series, and who they would want to name their pets after. (Reid, who originally protested that he didn't do so very well with pets, was eventually persuaded by Garcia to admit he might consider naming a cat Hermione.) Emily decided that was not something she could even begin to keep up with. There was also the weird factor that particular grouping to consider; Penelope and Kevin used to date, and Reid was more of a solitary person when he was on his own time. Still, Emily supposed, it was entirely possible for them to have common interests in entertainment.

Giving her head a shake and setting her thoughts aside, Emily stepped into Little Miss Whiskey's Golden Dollar- almost certainly Will's choice, and not a bad one, either – which was where she was supposed to meet them. For some reason, she had an idea in her head that the other four were planning a set up of some kind; most likely one of them brought a guy along to try to pair her off with. It wasn't that she much minded that so much; it just meant she would have to put on her best face and then at the end of night do all she could to make it clear she was into keeping everything casual. Really the only full time man she wanted in her life was Sergio, her cat.

 _O my God, I'm the Crazy Cat Lady..._

That was one of the things she liked about Sgt Joey Quinn of Miami, Florida. It was easy to keep things casual with him. She had her career here, and he had his there, and when opportunity struck they hooked up and had a good time. She had him pegged as the type who wasn't really into going for the long haul; maybe because he got burned going that way, or more likely because he didn't want to deal with the risk of grief and loss like he did after Debra Morgan got killed. She didn't mean to exploit him or anything like that; this was just a situation that worked out well for both of them.

Finding Matt and JJ, as well as Will and Matt's wife, she waved at them and made her way through the crowded trendy New Orleans themed bar towards them.

"Professor Snape," Garcia remarked, looking at Kevin's costume for the movie marathon once they and Reid had met at the cinema, "really?" Garcia herself was done up as Nymphadora Tonks; she even went so far as to dye her hair an almost violent bubblegum pink.

For his own part, Spencer had a hard time deciding between Remus Lupin and Albus Dumbledore; both were great examples of excellent teachers who were also strong father figures for the protagonist of the series (which he, the protagonist may have otherwise lacked – something which Reid often identified with), but had finally decided on Dumbledore; mainly because he found a very good replica of the Elder Wand. He was originally concerned there would be a lot of people with similar costumes (there were), but his was made unique in that as far as he could see, he was the only one with the Horcrux damaged hand as it was in the sixth book and movie. Now that he saw Garcia's costume, he was glad he didn't choose Lupin; otherwise people might think they were a couple. After so many years of friendship, that seemed somehow inappropriate.

"Always..." Kevin replied, in reference to the now famous movie quote.

Garcia rolled her eyes playfully. "You know I love you, Kevin, but Alan Rickman you are not." She said. "Seriously, though, I would have thought you'd be more of the Hagrid type."

"No way," Kevin answered. "Snape was, by far the most complicated and pivotal character in the whole series, other than the big three of course."

"He has a point, Garcia," Reid chimed in. "Dumbledore had a plan for bringing Voldemort down once and for all, and whether it worked or not all depended on if Snape could infiltrate the Death Eaters."

"I guess," Garcia admitted distastefully. "It doesn't change the fact he was a jerk and really creepy, though."

They were just about to enter the cinema when all three of them received a text message from Deputy Director Lisa Barnes. She wanted to see them; now.

"Uh-oh," Kevin said darkly. "I think I know what this is about."

"You think she's on to us and that Butcher thing." Garcia said. "Is this a bad thing? It feels like a bad thing. She's on to us and now she's calling us in to tells us off and shut us down."

"We don't know that for sure," Reid countered. "There are a lot of possible reasons she could be calling us in. It could be another case, for example. Or this could be one of her games with us as a team. The only way we're going to find out for sure is if we go in."

Disappointed as they were, the three of them got out of line and headed back towards their vehicles to get back to Quantico.

Smiling as warmly as she could manage, Prentiss greeted the two couples. So far it seemed like there wasn't another spare wheel; maybe her idea was wrong, after all.

"Let me guess," She said to Will once the standard hello's and how are you's were done. "You picked the place for tonight's festivities."

"I sure did." Will LaMontagne confirmed. "Though I bet you don't need to be a fancy profiler to put that one together. I just wanted a little taste of back home."

"I can see that," Emily said, looking around appreciatively.

"We let him pick because tonight is also about celebrating his promotion." JJ put in. She continued before Emily could respond. "Say hello to the Captain of DC Metro Homicide, my husband, Will LaMontagne."

Will raised a glass, the others raised theirs with him and toasted as they downed their bourbons.

"Congratulations!" Emily smiled as she took a seat at the table. "If this is a promotion party, I guess I better get in on the action!"

The others all cheered agreeably as Will waved down a cocktail waitress and ordered another round.

"Thank you, chere." He said to her as the round came to the table; Emily couldn't help but be impressed with how prompt the service was. "The trouble is," Will said, mostly to Emily, "now my old position of L.T. is vacant. Now what everybody is expectin' o' me is to promote the current Sarge, and there ain't nothin' wrong wit' dat, she's a great detective and all, but then the next up for the Sarge spot is a clown. So I'm thinkin' maybe I should keep her as Sarge and find me a new L.T. from someplace else; maybe another division or even some other department. I know I got one guy lookin' to transfer from out of town."

Will was getting drunk. Though his Cajun accent was ever present, it always got particularly noticeable after he had a few.

"What's this other guy's record look like?" She asked, once again getting the feeling that this was some sort of set up.

"It looks good." Will replied. "He's the Sarge in his current Homicide Department, and has been instrumental in number of high profile cases. See, what I'm also thinkin' is maybe DC needs a new pair of eyes, see? That way, we can look over some t'ings and maybe he'll catch somet'ing we 'all been missin', right?"

Emily had to admit; he had a point. Sometimes getting someone new and totally impartial can help. "You say he's already a Sergeant, right?" She asked. Will nodded the affirmative. "Then how about this," she offered, "promote your Sergeant to Lieutenant, and offer this new guy Sergeant with a pay raise. This way, your department gets what they expect, you avoid a discrimination suit, and that clown you mentioned stays in his place. Not only that, but you get your new eyes."

Will gaped at her, wide eyed. "I never even thought about the possibility of a discrimination suit." He said, suddenly sounding completely sober. "I mean, I got all caught up thinking about that clown Tyler Woods being Sergeant it never occurred to me that Lizzie Barrett would claim something like that."

"Is that the one I met?" JJ asked.

"Yeah, you met Lizzie." Will confirmed. "She don't seem like the type to go there right off the bat, but maybe if she felt she deserved the promotion, then I guess anything is possible. And she does deserve it, so..." he raised his glass "To unit chief Emily Prentiss of the BAU, for helping me solve my first political quagmire."

They all toasted and drank to that.

 _Quantico_

Reid, Lynch, and Garcia entered the office of the Deputy Director and were met with an awkward silence. Once the three of them filed into the office, Lisa Barnes simply regarded them reproachfully. Reid found the silent treatment rather off-putting. Based on the faint whimper that Garcia made, he wasn't alone in that finding. The look suggested to Reid that she was about to do something significant; perhaps she was on to them and their private review of Frank Lundy's final official case. Despite the fact that Barnes' predecessor declared the case closed and solved regardless that Lundy himself had indicated he had reservations, there were details to that case that just didn't add up – to borrow from Rossi's lexicon. Considering how much Administrative type disliked when the conclusions of the Bureau got second guessed – even from within, odds were good that the three of them were about to face some kind of reprimand. That would also make sense of why the rest of the team was not called in. In fact, that was the one positive Reid could make of the scenario; at least the fallout was limited. It was unfortunate that Garcia and Lynch were being dragged into Reid's trouble.

"Uh, please excuse the unusual attire, Miss Barnes," Kevin spoke up. "We were on some downtime and were just about to go into a movie marathon, see, and opted get here as promptly as possible when you messaged us."

Reid and Garcia exchanged glances. It had not occurred to either one of them that Barnes might be looking at their costumes. It was virtually impossible for Reid to forget they were in them, but the idea had never occurred to him. Self-conscious, he took off the wizard hat and half-moon spectacles. The extra-long beard was held on with sprit gum, so that would take some work to remove.

"Never mind the costumes," she said with surprising warmth. "In fact, I have a niece and a nephew that are both huge fans."

"Oh, wow," Garcia exclaimed. "That's good to know. Those stories are really mysteries disguised as fantasies, you know. Even more importantly, while all fantastical, they all have a lot of valuable messages for kids to learn about love and tolerance..."

"You know, that topic is certainly one worth exploring," Reid interrupted as politely ass he could. "but I'm sure Miss Barnes had a reason to call us in other than the topical themes of the works of JK Rowling."

"Thank you, Dr. Reid." Barnes acknowledged. She moved behind her desk and shuffled a number of files, carefully shielding the names of them until she settled on one of them to leaf through. "As it happens, I do have something to address." She confirmed. "It has come to our attention that you three have been, shall we say, double checking the work of the now departed Agent Frank Lundy in regards to the James Doakes case in Miami, Florida."

Reid noted that both Kevin and Garcia flinched slightly, as if they were concerned that perhaps they have missed some small detail in their research techniques which gave their movements away. Interestingly, he also noted that Lynch had the better poker face in this regard. Personally, Reid saw no point in denying anything. After all, they weren't really doing anything illegal.

"That's true." He admitted. "If you want to know, the interest in the case all started with me during the Jacob Elway case; I began reviewing the Doakes case files because it was immediately apparent that Elway was copying the means and method of the Original Bay Harbor Butcher. At first in method of his kill as well as victimology and disposal, although he began to devolve into several personal touches shortly after we began our investigation. You see, Jacob Elway chose to mimic the Butcher in order to lure his final target out of hiding; that target being one Hannah McKay, whom he became obsessed with after she escaped custody. Now it was actually Sgt. Joseph Quinn that finally managed to name Elway as the Copycat, but what caught my attention was the fact that there was no apparent reason to connect McKay to Doakes, so why did Elway think staging the return of the Butcher would serve his purposes of luring her out? That's why I wanted to review the original Doakes case more closely; especially since Lundy himself had some reservations about trying to convict James Doakes..."

"That's enough, doctor." Barnes said with remarkable patience. "We – that is to say the Director and I – both agree that the case warrants a thorough review, and want you three to spearhead that review since you already have a head start on it."

"You're giving us the green light?" Garcia asked, not sure if she was hearing correctly. "You're not reprimanding us for working around you?"

"That is correct, Agent Garcia." Barnes confirmed.

Reid was about to start going over how it seems the only person who is remotely connected to both cases, in particular with both James Doakes and Hannah McKay, is former Blood Spatter Analyst Dexter Morgan; who was thought to be dead since Hurricane Laura in Miami up until he reappeared just days after Miami Metro's technical analyst Astor Morgan –who also happened to be Dexter's adoptive daughter – discovered one of Elway's victims named Arthur Mitchell of Kentucky. Of course, this victim was not to be confused with Miami's Arthur Mitchell; also known as the Trinity Killer. Which again leads to Dexter Morgan, as he was involved in that case too; by his own claim he was masquerading as Kyle Butler in order to prove a case against Mitchell and provide the evidence he found to his sister, Debra Morgan. In fact, there was a multitude of things, all apparently incidental and circumstantial, that pointed to Dexter Morgan being the Prime Suspect as the Original Butcher. Reid knew it, but he couldn't prove it. One thing that had to be said for Dexter Morgan; if he was a serial killer, he was a master at disposing of any evidence. It was almost as if the clean up part was the important part; that getting away with murder was actually the thrill for him and therefore more important than the kill itself.

"...Are you still with us, Dr. Reid?"

"I'm sorry...?" Reid snapped out of his thoughts after Barnes asked him.

"Agents Lynch and Garcia were just saying that there is indeed a suspect, but the issue is coming up with sufficient evidence." Barnes summarized the part of the discussion that he had missed. "Apparently your suspect as the correct UnSub is very adept at covering his tracks."

"Yes, ma'am" Reid confirmed.

"The Director and I agree that it seems apparent that no small part of this would have to show an outstanding ability to cover any digital trail, if he is able to conceal himself from two of our best." Barnes said.

Garcia beamed. "Thank you, ma'am" she said. "That is assuming, of course, that he's working alone."

"Penelope and I..." Lynch started, and then hesitated. "I mean, Agent Garcia and I think he might have back up to deal with at least some of his online activity." He added.

"We agree," Barnes replied. "I'm very happy to hear we are already beginning to fall into synch on this matter. It seems obvious to both the Director and I that your suspect most likely would have this accomplice living in or near the Metro Miami area; probably someone that was involved in the original case."

"You see, there we have another problem." Reid spoke quickly. "Most of the original investigators on that case are now deceased. Those left surviving are Deputy Chief Matthews, Captain Angelo Batista, Lead Forensics Officer Vincent Masuka, and as we learned during the Copycat case, former Blood Spatter analyst Dexter Morgan. Morgan is not in Miami; we don't know where he is. None of the other three are likely to be talented enough online to evade both Lynch and Garcia at the same time."

"Well good, then," Barnes retorted, an edge of impatience coming out of her vocal tones. "Then when you and Agent Lynch go to Miami to track down which of those three is the accomplice, it should be quick work. Find the accomplice, the accomplice will lead you to the suspect."

For once, all three of them managed to hold their tongues and not say that was an obvious observation. Reid guessed it was because they realized that on this one case, Barnes was actually on board with them. For him, at least, it seemed prudent to play nice for now.

"That's good advice." He said, hoping he sounded courteous even though it sounded dry to his ears. "Thank you. So I guess I'll just contact the team and get them all caught up to speed so we can go to Miami to look into..."

"No, Dr. Reid; the team will not be joining you three on this particular endeavor." Barnes insisted. "For the time being, this is a review, not a fully fledged case. We are just making sure that no mistakes were made. You and Agent Lynch will indeed be proceeding to Miami, and Agent Garcia will liaise from here."

"But..."Garcia started to object with a tiny voice and a look of mild hurt in her eyes.

"I assure you it is not a personal slight against you, Agent Garcia." Barnes said. "It's just that the rest of your team may be called to a case, and then we will need you to work with them."

"Well," Garcia replied equivocally, "I guess that makes sense..."

Barnes produced a pair of flight coupons and handed them to Reid and Lynch. "Your flight departs tomorrow morning at nine am." She said. "I suggest you get packed and get some rest."


	3. Chapter 3

_Near Anaheim, California – September_

Oscar Coalworth felt good. Fulfilled, his hunger was satisfied and now he had plenty left over to last until the end of next month if he was careful; and he was always careful. This one was especially tender; where did he say he was from? Was it Oklahoma? No, that was the one before; from Independence Day. This one was from Iowa, he said. They know how to grow them there; much better than Big City places like New York or even Los Angeles. Oscar always presumed it had something to do with what the kids are fed; farmer's kids must get better, more natural ingredients with less preservatives or something. He didn't really know for sure, he just knew that farm boys tasted better. They felt better, too; they had better muscle tone or something like that.

With his urges and his hunger slated, it was now time to clean up and dispose of the waste. That meant he had to dig. Oscar read somewhere once that many hunters such as himself liked to keep trophies when they did things like this; mementos of what they had done so they could relive it. Oscar never understood that particular habit; to him that just seemed like an easy way for cops to track you down. Hunting for sport alone seemed like an insult to him, not to mention a waste of a perfectly good resource, which had to upset the balance of nature. The way Oscar saw it; to kill something and then not eat it was a terrible sin. He wasn't a Jesus freak or a religious nut or anything like that; it was just an expression to describe the wrongness of killing just for fun or sport. It was fun, of course, and there was no denying that he liked to play with what he caught, but really that was secondary. If he had to do without playtime, he could.

The hole was dug. Next Oscar Coalworth went back to his van take out a heavy duty black garbage bag and bring it to the hole. The contents inside the bag clinked and clanked as they jangled together along the way. After ensuring the bag was sealed up nice and tight, he dropped the bag of bones in. Next he filled the hole back up; first with stones about halfway in case dogs or something came along and caught a scent despite how carefully he scrubbed and sanitized the bones, then with dirt the rest of the way. This way, even if something came along and tried to dig them up, the stones would block their progress. After that, he packed the dirt down, but not so tight that it looked unnatural. Once all of that was done to his satisfaction, Oscar Coalworth returned his shovel to his van, got inside, and drove away back into the city towards his home. He made a note in his head to fill up with on the way in case his wife Alexandra asked why he took the van out instead of the car. He could say that he just remembered that it needed gas, and then prove it by showing her a receipt.

 _In the Air_

For the first time in a very long time, Dr. Spencer Reid was on a flight that didn't involve the company jet. He and Kevin Lynch boarded flight 12 to Miami International Airport from Dulles at 9:00 am. It was a first class flight; Barnes was treating them well enough, he had to admit.

"M.I.A." Kevin said in the seat beside him.

"What?"

"The initials of the Airport," Kevin answered. "M.I.A; it's kind of funny, you know. Because that could also be Missing In Action."

Frowning slightly, Reid attempted to see the relevance of Kevin's comment. Not seeing any, Spencer then decided it was best to just smile and agree it was indeed amusing. Apparently Kevin was able to work out that Reid missed the relevance of his observation, because he elaborated that they had a theory about a specific suspect, whose gone Missing In Action, and our search begins in Miami International Airport. It was M.I.A. in M.I.A.

Spencer let out a small bark of laughter. The gesture seemed to be enough to satisfy Kevin that some form of rapport had been established; it just now occurred to Spencer that this was Kevin's attempt at bonding. Smiling, Kevin pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose.

"So, when we land, what's our first move?" He asked.

"Well, for starters," Reid began, "we're going to establish ourselves at Miami Metro Homicide Division. That's where this entire case began, so it's the most likely place we're going to find anything useful. Next, we're contacting Garcia to see if she's made any progress on those fractured files; I'm especially curious about that possible video file. While we're at it, we're going to do a deep dig on Jonah Mitchell's background; I want to know what kind of computer skill he has specifically."

"Isn't Jonah Mitchell that guy in WITPRO which I put that file together for?" Kevin asked. "I thought you guys already interviewed him twice."

"I take it you didn't read the file too closely." Spencer replied, hoping he didn't sound unkind. "During the interviews last time, I noticed he was hiding crucial information, but we couldn't glean precisely what it was." He patted his carry on briefcase lightly. "That file revealed a lot more than I thought it would; I'm sure there's more to found."

"I just looked at the name and some of the preliminary stuff." Kevin admitted. "The rest I just kind of skimmed through; I figured it was your case and therefore not really my business."

Reid smiled wanly. "That's fine. You probably noticed that it was mostly comprised of a log written by Dr. Evelyn Voegel; also known as the Psychopath Whisperer when she was alive. In it, he confirms the confessions he did make in our interviews; that he knew that Kyle Butler was an alias for Dexter Morgan. However, he also confessed that he knew that his father Arthur Mitchell..."

"Do you mean Trinity?" Kevin asked.

"Yes, I mean Trinity." Spencer confirmed patiently. "Anyway, in his sessions with Dr. Voegel, Jonah confessed knowing his father was dead and had suspected as much shortly after the police raid on the Mitchell residence in Miami. Even then, he suspected Dexter, especially after it was revealed that his wife, Rita Morgan, was killed."

"And he kept quiet about it because he figured this guy Dexter did him and his family a favor." Kevin finished the thought. Reid nodded appreciatively. Kevin was catching on. It was possible this pairing was going to work out. He liked Kevin, but at first had doubts. Those doubts were starting to ebb away.

"But that's not all." Spencer continued. "Jonah also shed some light on his encounter with Dexter Morgan in Kearney, Nebraska. You see, Jonah explains that the real reason Dexter showed up was because he knew who really killed Sally Mitchell. Dexter knew it was Jonah who killed his mother after his sister committed suicide. That was how, Jonah confessed, he was able to figure out for sure that Dexter killed Arthur."

"Then he kept quiet in order to buy Dexter's silence." Kevin concluded. "It's a kind of mutually assured destruction thing."

"That's most likely." Spencer confirmed. "However we can't overlook the possibility that the two are in cooperation with each other now and have been since as far back as the end of Trinity's run. I'm not exactly married to that theory, but it does have its merits. What I'd like to attempt is to locate Jonah – he might still be using the alias Mitchell Jones – and offer him a kind of immunity for his crimes if he can confirm the claims he made while in session with Voegel. What would be in our favor here is that since he has not been arrested since his confession, that it is highly probable that Voegel did not include that confession in her official report, so no record of our discussion with him needs to exist. If Dexter Morgan is the real Butcher, maybe Mitchell can tell us where we can find him and Dexter will have no weapon against him."

"Okay, that sounds good." Kevin nodded. "What else do we have?"

"I'll need you to go through the original files of the first Butcher case, and we'll both be interviewing investigators that were involved and are still alive." Reid said. "That would be Captain Angelo Batista, Deputy Chief Matthews, and Lead Forensics Investigator Vincent Masuka. We might also want to talk with Analyst Astor Morgan. She was much too young to be involved with the case, but since she's Dexter's adoptive daughter, she might know something and not even be aware of it."

 _San Diego, California_

 _Sometimes I wonder how much genetics alone plays into how the Dark Passenger presents itself in Travellers like Harrison and I; and if it evolves with each generation. As it stands now I am both delighted and disturbed at how quickly Harrison is taking to the Code; it's_ almost _as if the Code is just the way he would live with or without my counsel. On the other hand, I suppose I could be going all deeply, darkly, disturbingly delighted daddy Dexter on him for no real reason at all; I mean, he did grow up for four years under my care and learning the Code by observing dear old dad. Maybe a lot of that just stuck with him._  
 _We have certain mannerisms that are similar too, you know; we have both named the Darkness. What I call the Dark Passenger he has taken to referring to as his 'Shady Co-host'. He's also been showing no small talent towards the practical end of things, too. In fact, it seems his skills at researching potential targets and determining whether they fit the Code or not is already getting far more sophisticated than mine..._

"By the time he's ready to go out on his own, I may be obsolete, anyway." Dexter muttered to himself as he sat behind his computer. Having just finished the final touches on making his Courier Business legitimate –or at least as much as it can be under a false identity- he decided he had some time to explore the hobby he and his son evidently had in common. One thing he had noticed during the course of training Harrison was that as his son grew more anxious to 'let the Shady Co-host take the stage' so his own Dark Passenger wanted to take the wheel. Now he was looking for potential Playmates. As he had discovered, it sometimes helps to look at unsolved crimes; this was what he was browsing through now.

And then he stopped. He as looking at an article for a MISSING CHILD that for a moment he was certain was Harrison. For the briefest of moments, he thought it might be necessary to uproot everything they had just established. The child was the same age as Harrison and last seen in Anaheim, California. Upon closer investigation, however, he saw the boy that looked so much like his son was in fact Trevor Dunlop, originally from Walford Iowa. According to the news feed he was looking through, Trevor went missing on the Labor Day Weekend after he went wandering away from his family near Disneyland.

"That kind of thing is something that probably happens all the time in Anaheim." Dexter said to nobody. "It's tragic, and certainly worth looking deeper into, but right now I need something a little quicker to verify."

It wasn't long before he found one that he looked promising. It was announced as a PSA that Alberto Carman Eltoro, a drug dealer who was recently arrested for, among several other things, the shooting death of a cop six months ago is being let out due to a technicality that took place during his arrest. The announcement was that "ACE" was to be considered armed and dangerous.

"Well, hello there, Ace." Dexter said, looking at the police photo. "It looks to me like you and I are going to be very special friends." He ran a search on his new playmate, found all that he could on Alberto Eltoro, and began to formulate a plan.

 _Miami, Florida_

Captain Angelo Juan-Marco Batista of the Miami Metro Homicide division sighed heavily and sat down behind his desk, rubbing his eyelids with thumb and forefinger. He had a very full plate to deal with; and almost none of it had to with his restaurant. That was running well enough, at least.

As for his precinct, that was another matter entirely. Bodies had been turning up at a rate of almost three a week ever since the Elway case due to a vicious gang war between the Irish Kings and the Brazilians; both of which were vying to fill the vacuum left after the Koshka Brotherhood fell apart. There had been a lot of trouble with that struggle for years, but recently it was heating up to levels nobody could have foreseen. What made matters worse was there was a constant jurisdictional dispute between Metro and State cops, and squabbles within the department over whose case was whose; it seemed that Vice, Narcotics, Gangland, and Homicide cops were constantly butting heads. The whole city was on the edge of panic, City Hall was screaming about the drop in tourism, the media was out for blood, and all of this was on the heels of Matthews retiring after promoting Angie Miller to the spot of Deputy Chief. She was a good cop; sharp as they come, but she was young. Then again, if Angel was going to be honest, he was glad it was her that got tapped for that job and not him; at least he didn't have to deal with nearly as much politics in his Captain's chair. It just meant that he needed a new Lieutenant.

That led to another problem. The guy he was intending to promote just tendered his resignation so he could take up a job in Washington, D.C. The bitch of that move was that Joey Quinn was _the_ guy who had inroads with the Irish Kings. Quinn made up all kinds of excuses about needing to get out of Miami and all hard memories, but it all boiled down to one thing.

"Damn you, Quinn," Batista muttered. "There you go chasing tail and thinking with your dick again." Now he would have really few choices as to who make his Lt. The best choice he had within his division was Duncan Shaw, whom he was intending to make Sergeant. If he did that, then he'd have to find a replacement for that seat as well. "What a fuckin' mess."

That was when he saw the memo from Angie's office sitting on his desk. He picked it up and read. His day was just getting better and better. It advised him that some big gun from the FBI was sending a couple of agents that wanted to review the Doakes case for research purposes. Why wouldn't this case just go away? Angel wondered resentfully. It wasn't as if the shit didn't hit the fan hard enough the first time, and then after that blood slide like the ones Doakes had showed up at the end of the DDK case, Maria had to go and reopen the case, hoping to clear Doakes' name. Not only did everything she find only confirm that Doakes was indeed the Butcher, but her efforts to prove that it was Dexter Morgan almost ruined her career; or it would have if she didn't get herself killed. Then Jacob Elway had to choose, of all the psychos that have hit Miami, the Bay Harbor Butcher in order to try and get to Hannah McKay, who was still at large after her escape. Now the Feds want to look at the case again? The Bay Harbor Butcher was like that burn on the top of your mouth that you can't help playing with with your tongue.

Duncan Shaw broke up Angel's thoughts by rapping gently on his office door before letting himself in. "You wanted to see me, Cap." He said rather than asked.

"Yeah, I did," Angel replied, waving the Detective in. "Come on in; close the door behind you and have a seat, Duncan."

Duncan obliged. Angel reached behind him into a filing cabinet and fished out Duncan's service record so he could look over it. The way he kept his office was nowhere near as tidy or organized as Maria did when she was Captain, but he wasn't as much of a slob as Deb was back when she was L.T. either. For the briefest of moments it came into his head that it seemed a lot of people in the offices of Lieutenant and Captain of this Division have met with grisly deaths over the past decade or so. The thought made him think maybe Matthews had the right idea. It wasn't the first time he toyed with the idea of turning in his badge and his gun and just running Papa's on the beach.

"What's up, boss?" Duncan asked. He was obviously doing all he could to suppress a grin on his face and maintain a professional composure. It was no secret that he was being considered for the spot of Sergeant. Angel guessed that Duncan figured that was what this was about.

"Well, as you know, before Matthews retired, he recommended that Miller get bumped to the role of D.C." Angel began. He raised a hand, palm facing Duncan to silence him. "Don't worry about me, I'm okay with it. It's no secret that Matthews and I had our issues in the past, but Angie jumping me had nothing to do with that. That was all about politics and public relations. Matthews wanted to go out looking like an open minded, free thinker that put the first black woman in his office; and so much the better if she's the youngest Deputy Chief in the history of Miami. That's the kind of game he played, and I didn't want the job anyway. Besides, he was right, in a way, it's been good PR for the Department."

"She was good as Lieutenant." Duncan said. "I bet she'll do just fine. But I know you didn't call me in here to talk about Miller's promotion." He paused to look around, making a point to glance out the office windows into the bullpen. "Shouldn't Quinn be in on this conversation?"

"Quinn won't be joining us. That's what we're here about." Angel replied.

Duncan looked puzzled for an instant; his eyes did that rolling thing they do when he's puzzling something out internally. To some folks, it might look like he's slow on the uptake or something, but Batista knew better; it was more like his brain was some kind of super computer that running so fast with bits of information that the rest of his body couldn't keep up. Internally, Angel called it Shaw's analysis mode.

"Quinn's decided to take that Washington position, hasn't he?" Duncan asked. "You're not offering me the Sergeant Shield, are you?"

"Correct on both counts." Batista confirmed. "I'm asking you to take the Lieutenant's test."

Duncan smiled broadly and stood up, extending his hand. Angel rose and shook Shaw's hand as Duncan offered him his thanks. With a new spring in his step, Duncan left the office. If he passed the test, and Angel felt sure he would, then promoting a Sarge would be Duncan's duty; Batista had a hunch Shaw would want Sam Kellogg, which would be fine; even if Angel actually liked Charlie Post better. The best thing would be if both took the test and the best result gets the job.

Speaking of which, Detective Charlie Post rapped lightly on the office door, which Shaw left ajar. "Sir, an Agent Kevin Lynch and Dr. Spencer Reid from the FBI are here to see you." Post announced.

Angel didn't know the name Lynch, but he remembered Reid from the last time the Feds were in town. That was the skinny guy that Astor got all excited about; the one that pretty much lived in their conference room looking at all the data until he figured out their suspect was trying to set a trap for Hannah McKay. Then Joey pulled Elway out his ass as the guy to go looking for.

Steeling himself and putting on his best welcome smile, Angel said "that's fine, detective. Send them in."

Dr. Reid and Kevin Lynch followed the detective into the Captain's office. The first thing about the Captain that Kevin noticed was the rather snazzy hat he wore, which was kind of offset by the volume of his printed button-down, short sleeved shirt. It had floral patterns that Kevin felt would be more suited to be found on a shower curtain in a retirement home; but then they were not there to scrutinize the fashion sense of the Miami PD. The slide stand on his desk read CAPT. ANGELO BATISTA, and Angelo stood up from behind his desk to greet them.

"Dr. Reid, it's good to see you again," he said, nodding in acknowledgement, but not shaking his hand. Then Batista regarded Kevin, and offered his hand to shake. "So you must be Agent Kevin Lynch, I'm Captain Angel Batista."

Kevin shook hands. Batista gestured to the seats near his desk and sat down himself. "So what brings you back to Miami, exactly?" He asked.

"During our reviews of both the James Doakes and the Jacob Elway cases, we found certain inconsistencies with the facts and certain incidents of evidence tampering that the Bureau sent us here to double check." Dr. Reid replied. "We're not saying that you or your department had anything to do with any wrongdoing, Captain. We're just here to make sure that all our i's are dotted and t's are crossed. It's just due diligence, you understand? The Administration tends to get sticky about this kind of thing."

For a fraction of a second, Kevin was confused. It was Reid who found these inconsistencies in the first place; why was he putting the blame on the upper crust? Then he realized what was happening; Reid was playing the Captain to put him at ease. This was his way of reassuring the Department they weren't there to question their work, but the Bureaus. It was a kind of mix of truth and lies. Kevin found he had to admire how well Spencer pulled it off; he had no idea Reid was even capable of such guile. Actually, Kevin was a little impressed.

"I get it." Batista said quietly, nodding in understanding. He looked relieved; like he was hoping they would be done and gone quickly. "Well, if there's anything I or my department can do to help, just let me know."

"As a matter of fact there is." Spencer responded. "I'd like very much to interview any of the investigators involved in the original Butcher case, for starters, as well as your Deputy Chief Matthews if at all possible. Also, Agent Lynch is here as technical expert. We'd appreciate it very much if you could allow him to go over all computer records of the cases concerning James Doakes and Jacob Elway, and I would like to take a look at the hard evidence."

"Well, here's the thing." Batista began, removing his hat and setting it aside as he leaned forward on his desk, interlocking his fingers. "Of the crew that investigated Doakes there's only two of us left; that would be me and our Lead Forensics Investigator Vincent Masuka. I would be happy to arrange those interviews ASAP for you. Matthews is retired; I will have to give you his contact information, and then it's up to him if wants to talk to you or not." He looked at Kevin. Our main tech geek is Astor Morgan; she is also in Forensics. I have to warn you, though; she gets real touchy about anyone messing with her system."

Kevin pushed his glasses up and grinned. "I understand that completely." He said truthfully. "I can assure her, one tech geek to another, that I will not change a thing; in fact she can watch as I look through everything if she wants."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate that." Batista said, rising slowly and placing his hat back on his head. "I'll go set everything up for you guys then. You're welcome to make yourself as comfortable as possible in our conference room."

"Thank you very much, Captain." Reid said graciously. Again, Kevin noticed they did not shake hands as Batista let them out of his office before leaving it himself and going off to arrange all that he said would, presumably.

"Was there bad tidings between you last time?" Kevin asked.

"What?" Reid asked, frowning slightly.

"The last time you were here." Kevin prompted. "Did something go down that created hard feelings? I noticed you didn't shake hands."

"Reid's frown turned to a look of sudden comprehension. "Oh, no, there's nothing like that." He explained. "See, I have this thing where I avoid shaking hands whenever I can because of the amount of germs and harmful bacteria that are on our hands even with good hand washing practices: although that's not really anybody's fault if you think about how much we all use our hands for everything; it's really unavoidable how filthy our hands will be –not that that is any excuse not to wash our hands. I guess he just remembered my habit from last time I was here."

"Right," Kevin muttered. "Sorry I asked. So what do we do while we wait?"

"Call Garcia," Reid advised, "and find out how she's doing on finding anything new on Jordan Mitchell."

Kevin pulled out his phone, noting a cute, young, slightly Gothic looking girl taking her time as she passed the conference room window to take a good look at them as she passed. A grin that seemed a little bit naughty to Kevin crossed her lips, and she hurried past once she was seen lingering. Kevin was just about to punch Penelope's number in his contacts when his phone rang. It was Penelope.


	4. Chapter 4 The hunt begins

_Quantico_

"Wow, you really are amazing, Penelope." Kevin said on the other end of the line. He had called while he and Spencer were on their way to Miami Metro, and wanted a deep dig on Jonah Mitchell, aka Mitchell Jones. "I was just about to call you.

"You only say that because it's true." Garcia said back. "Anyway, I dug as deep as can be dug on Jonah Mitchell aka Mitchell Jones, and I have to tell you he is about the least creepy guy to ever be in witness protection. The dirtiest thing on his online activity is downloading pictures of bikini clad women washing cars, and I find nothing remarkable about his Net skills; unless you call being remarkably unremarkable remarkable. I swear this guy is strictly point and click, and call tech support if anything goes wrong. I'm not even sure if he knows how to defragment his hard drive. He does have a very cute video of a dog chasing away some jerk who threw a rock at a cat, though."

"I see." Kevin said. "So it doesn't seem likely he's helping this guy Dexter. Well, I bet Dr. Reid will want to talk to him anyway."

Garcia couldn't help but smile; it was sounding like Kevin and the boy genius were working well together. "So far it appears that keeping each other's secret is their only relationship, my dear, but I do have the address where Mitchell is currently staying, and I am sending to both you and the boy wonder...now." She clicked the information to their devices.

"That's great." Kevin said. "Oh, before I forget, Dr. Reid was also wondering how those other files are coming along. He's especially interested in the video file you think you found."

Garcia winced. She knew that was coming, but she was hoping it wouldn't be touched upon just yet. "The video file is proving to be unbelievably frustrating, but I think I'm close to getting one of the documents sorted out." She replied. "I can't be sure yet, but I think it might be notes on Voegel's sessions with Debra Morgan; there's the name LaGuerta that keeps coming up, and that was one of the people whose death really messed her up, right?"

"I wouldn't know." Kevin answered.

"Oh, right, of course you wouldn't. Not that that makes you any less intelligent. Just that this wasn't your case, so you wouldn't have that information..."

"I understood what you meant, Penelope." Kevin said soothingly. "Listen, I better get back to what we're doing here, alright? We have a bunch of work to get through."

"Okay," Garcia said quietly. "Well, 'bye." She disconnected the call. Before resuming her effort to piece together what she thought was the Dr. Voegel Document on Debra Morgan, she gazed at one of her trolls; it was one that Kevin bought her when they were a thing. There was a part of her that still adored Kevin Lynch; he was such a sweet man.

She looked again at the document, such as it was, and then she what she sometimes referred to in her head as a Spencer moment. Looking at her screens, she saw how several of the fragments all fit together so they would actually become something legible. It might not be a whole lot, but it was something.

"..and now a little bit of the Garcia magic to go with the Spencer pattern spotting moment," she muttered as she clicked on her center-most keyboard, "...and voila!" She hit enter. In a matter of moments the fragments she was most interested in began to fall into place. It would still take some time, but she should have at least a piece of a useful document that can be read; and once that piece was established, the rest of it would start to be like a jigsaw puzzle that got easier and easier to see how it fits.

 _Washington, DC_

The plane had touched down in Dulles and Joe Quinn got off the plane. After collecting his luggage, he began searching for his ride; only mildly disappointed with the knowledge that it wasn't Emily he was meeting. He did want to see her as soon as possible, but he was also thrilled with the idea of his showing up in DC being a big surprise. The fact that she can't always read him like she might read one of her Profiles was going to make their relationship that much more exciting; he was sure of it.

Quinn left Angel in a bit of a lurch; it was true. He figured that Angel didn't quite buy his reasons for wanting out of Miami. The thing was that he was telling the truth; it really was time to move on. Batista wasn't stupid; he knew damn well that Quinn's primary motivation for the move was Agent Emily Prentiss, but what Angel seemed to be missing was that was what Joey meant. If he was going to progress in life beyond Deb, he had to get out of Florida. Of course, there was an added bonus to being in DC and close to a Fed. This way, he could keep a finger on the pulse of FBI movements in regards to anything to do with Dex a lot easier; he might even catch wind of stuff before Astor on her computers and gizmos. That was, of course, a secondary concern, what mattered to him right now was resuming his career, and taking things with Em to the next level.

Near the exit of the building, Quinn saw a man with a sign reading his name. He waved high over his head at the guy and made his way towards him.

"You're Lieutenant LaMontagne?" he asked when he got to him.

"Dat would be me." LaMontagne confirmed. "It's good to meet you face to face at last. Welcome to DC. Oh, and since we ain't on the clock just now, you can call me Will."

"I'll do that," Quinn replied, "but only if you call me Joey; or Joe if you like that better."

"Well, t'en, Joey it is." Will said, grinning a grin with just the kind of charm that Joey had no doubt got the Lieutenant laid plenty of times. He noted Will had a wedding band and wondered if he was true to his wife or if he liked to step out every once in awhile. He quickly dismissed this thought, though; that kind of thinking was part of what he was trying to leave behind.

They shook hands. As they ventured off to Will's car, they chatted a little. Will told him some of the places that were good to hang out in, some of the better neighborhoods to live in (one which Joey had evidently managed to pick out when arranging his new accommodations before taking the transfer), the fact that he and his wife had a running bet with each other over the Saints and the Redskins, that sort of thing. For now, Quinn mostly listened. He was the new kid in town; it was best to get a lay of the land before making too much noise. He expressed his love of the Dolphins, though, and that he didn't think would die. Then Will invited him to a welcome to town dinner at the house; he could meet and greet with his wife and his two boys.

"Actually, you prob'ly already know the wife," Will said casually. "I'm sure you met a little while back in Miami when she was part of case over that way; SSA Jennifer Jareau; you know her?"

For about a second, Joey was speechless. "Yeah, I remember her. Goes by JJ, right? Works on the Unit led by Prentiss?"

"That'd be the one." Will confirmed. "So what do you say? You wanna come in? I been setting up somet'ing real nice on the slow cooker all day." He offered.

Joey smiled, not believing his good fortune. He had an even better in on this new town than he thought. It was looking like he was getting some that old Irish luck back. "Yeah, sure, I'd like that, thanks. Just let me get a little settled in my place first."

 _Miami, Florida_

The first person that SSA Dr, Spencer Reid and Technical Analyst Kevin Lynch that Capt Batista had arranged an interview with was Lead Forensic Investigator Vincent Masuka; a short, bald, middle aged Japanese man with a slight frame that was surprisingly well toned under his lab jacket and a pair of spectacles. He was also sporting a necktie that was bordering on being obnoxious, though Spencer saw no need to comment on the tie.

"Thank you for taking the time to see us, sir," Spencer greeted. "I'm sure you have a heavy caseload right now with all the gang-related activity in your city. That is why we'll try to finish this as quickly as possible."

Vincent Masuka nodded.

"As I understand it, you were the Lead in Forensics during the original Bay Harbor Butcher case. Is that correct?" Spencer asked.

"Well in theory at least." Masuka answered. "Thing was, Lundy basically snubbed me, and deferred all his forensic questions to Dex. My guess is that's because he was trying to make sure that Dex would be okay with him trying to bang his sister. I can respect that." He let out what had to the most lewd sounding burst of laughter Spencer had ever heard in his entire life; or at least from someone who wasn't completely deranged. Once again, it seemed Dexter Morgan managed to run interference; it was possible that he presented forensic evidence in a manner that would lead the investigation away him being a suspect. That fit some of Lundy's early notes: That Dexter Morgan fit several elements of the profile Lundy was developing, but no clear evidence linking him to the crimes. In his notes, Lundy also indicated part of the reason he was sticking close to Dexter was to see if he, Dexter, would slip up and inadvertently or sub-consciously confess. The other part of his reason, evidently, was that he found Masuka vile in his manner of speaking. Spencer could see Lundy's point on that matter.

"According to the files I reviewed, there was an incident that caused the destruction of a great deal of evidence shortly after the bodies were discovered." He said.

Masuka pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully. "Those fuckin' moron garbage men," he said, reflecting. "There were so many bodies we had to store them off site in a massive cold storage unit. One night, those idiots bumped a dumpster into the cooling unit lines and fucked up the air flow. What a mess that was; by the time we found out about it, we were knee deep in human soup. And the smell was un-fuckin-believable."

"So you maintain that it was an accident?" Reid asked.

"Well, yeah," Masuka replied. "A really convenient one for Doakes, but..." he paused and thought it over. "Hey, you don't suppose that Doakes engineered that accident to slow us down, do you?"

"It's possible." Reid answered.

"Or what if he had an accomplice?"

"Also possible" Spencer allowed. Both of those alternatives were certainly possible, but again it was speculation. Given the amount of time that had passed, it was impossible to prove with anything short of a confession. Another possibility was that it was in fact Dexter Morgan who tampered with the forensic evidence; he would know where the bodies were being kept, and would most definitely know how to ruin the recovered remains, as degraded as they likely already were. One thing was certain; whoever the real Butcher was, he was nothing if not thorough. In an odd way, Spencer felt a little respect for his work.

Once again, he caught his thoughts drifting towards his brief encounter with Dexter Morgan, with whom he had an interview during the Copycat Butcher investigation. Much of Dexter's explanations regarding his faked death and his return to Miami made sense on a surface level, but not so much if one looked even a little deeper. For example, if he faked his death and vanished in order to protect his loved ones and to escape a possible threat from Arthur Mitchell, then why come back to ensure that Astor was safe? The real issue was, however, that none of his claims could be confirmed or refuted; there was simply no proof one way or the other. If Spencer was going to be honest, it was impressive.

"Let me ask you this," Spencer continued with the interview. "It was you who was able to determine which Marina the original Butcher was operating out of, correct?"

Masuka straightened up with pride. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I was able to match the type of algae on the rocks used to weigh the bodies down to a specific location. You see, the water takes on the properties of what is put in the water, and since the water is where the algae grow, the alga takes on those properties, too."

Knowing this, Reid simply nodded appreciatively. Kevin, on the other hand, stared gape-mouthed in awe that anyone would even think to look for something like that.

"Who was it again that was able to determine that James Doakes had a boat in that Marina?" Reid asked.

"That would have been Dexterous." Masuka replied. "Sorry, I mean Dexter; he had a boat there, too at one point, but said he moved his out of there when he found Doakes was there. He said he felt intimidated; and given the way those two were with each other here, there's no denying that rings true."

"Was Morgan's claim ever confirmed?" Kevin asked suddenly. "Was any record of Doakes' boat at that Marina ever uncovered?"

Masuka hesitated in thought; his eyes briefly shifting to the memory center of his brain. "I don't recall any official record," he said finally, but LaGuerta and Matthews did find his boat much later." He nodded slowly, feeling more comfortable with his memory. "Yeah, that was during that whole Koshka Brotherhood mess, when LaGuerta reopened the Butcher case; right after that DDK thing wrapped up. She and Doakes were close. I think they might have even making the beast with two backs at some point..." He made with that awful laugh again. "I guess it makes sense she would want to try and clear his name posthumously, but there it was. All evidence kept going back to him."

"Let me ask you one more thing." Reid pressed on. "Did LaGuerta ever come up with any other suspects in her re investigation?"

"Would you believe this?" Masuka replied, "She actually thought Dexter was a viable suspect! She even suspected that Debra was in on it somehow! I mean, there was no secret that LaGuerta and Deb didn't like each other, but that's completely insane! Dex and Deb were either second or third generation on the force; they were so clean it was almost embarrassing!"

Dr. Reid thanked Masuka and concluded the interview. Next to be interviewed was to be Astor Morgan. Though he didn't think she would be able to shed much light on anything, he felt it would be a mistake not to check.

 _San Diego, California_

It was getting quite late in California, but Dexter Morgan – aka Frank Castle – was on a mission. It wasn't _the_ night yet, but that was coming close; all he had to do was a little bit of recon. Given the type of criminal 'Ace' was, there was a high probability that he was being monitored by the cops so they could bust him again as quickly as possible. That was a problem. What he needed to do was two-fold: First, he needed to figure out their schedule and rotation to determine the best time to make his move. Second, he needed to see if there was a way to spoil the surveillance in order to make an optimum window of opportunity. That was why he was at the Court Pub.

If you ever had a mental image of what a Cop Bar would look like, the Court was that place that filled that image to a tee. Or, at least, it did the job for Dexter. Not that it mattered much one way or the other for him; what mattered was that the Court was a favorite watering hole for Const. Pedro Alvarez before he was shot and killed in a bust gone badly sideways. Even now, months later, the Court had a somber feel to it. This wasn't much of a surprise to Dexter; he knew cops had a tendency to hold on to stuff like this until they felt they settled the score- whatever that meant to them. He had, after all, worked with cops in what now seemed like another life, and cops were in his adoptive family; both his father and his sister were highly decorated and well deserving cops when they were alive. In its own peculiar way, the mood of the Court sort of resonated with him.

 _If I had any feelings, this place might just be enough to make me weep._

Dexter looked around casually, and then finally took a tool at bar; the one he selected was across from a large photo of Const. Alvez which was mounted behind bar and above the bottle display which manly featured an array of different brands of Tequila. Beside him, another cop sat; if this one looked directly at the photo, he might as well be staring at a mirror- or close enough; that mirror would be making him look like he was about five years younger. The man was drinking an interesting looking cocktail; it was clear but had certain cloudy look to it that Dexter didn't recall seeing before.

"Hey, buddy, what can I get you?" The bartender asked him.

"I'd love a beer; Canadian if you have it." Dexter replied.

"Sure thing, buddy," the bartender said as he reached under the bar to produce a bottle. He twisted off the top and placed it firmly on a coaster in front of Dexter. "Is a bottle okay?"

"That's perfect." He replied. He took a healthy swig, gazing casually at the photo behind the bar; taking note of the small plaque that read: 'IN MEMORY'. He looked at the guy beside him.

"This is probably a dumb question, but what's the deal with that?" He asked, pointing to the photo. "Who's that guy?"

The guy beside him turned and looked at him; as if sizing him up to decide whether he was ignorant or being an asshole.

"Are you new around here or something?" He asked.

"Actually, yeah," Dexter replied. "My family and I just moved in from Seattle Washington. It was time to get out of the rain, you know what I mean?" He leaned over a little and extended his hand. The other guy took it almost instinctively. "I'm James, by the way; James Tate."

"Pleased to meet you." The guy said. "I'm Paul Alvarez; do you mind if I call you J.T.?"

"That's fine."

Paul nodded slowly; apparently deciding that J.T. was not an asshole. He waved a hand towards the photo behind the bar. "My younger brother Pedro was gunned down by some punk hood a few months back; then, get this, the sonofawhore gets to walk all because of some tiny technicality bullshit!" He slammed his hand down hard on the bar and said something in Spanish that ought never be said in any polite society. He quickly apologized, saying he shouldn't go off like that, taking a sip of his cocktail.

"No need to apologize," Dexter said. "I get what you're saying. My dad was a cop back home. He was always going on about how punks and hoods and the 'real bad guys' getting off because of politics. Then the very people that advocate for criminal rights demand that cops keep our streets safe. "

"I hear that." Paul agreed, raising his glass as if to toast the sentiment. Dexter lifted his bottle and clinked it up against the glass. "Your old man sounds like he's a smart man, J.T. So what happened to him, anyway? He retire, get the damn watch, and just cleared out of the crap?"

"Actually, the politics and corruption killed him." Dexter answered. "In the end he took off on a fishing trip, and then ate his gun." The fabrications and embellishments were just rolling off his tongue as naturally as if he never quit his hobby; he hadn't missed a step. Dexter was definitely back.

Paul shook his head slowly. "Sorry to hear it, J.T." he said. "Listen to me; that doesn't make your old man weak or a bad a cop, okay? Sometimes a man just hits a certain breaking point. It's sad as hell when it happens, but that's what happens."

"I know," Dexter said, putting on his very best semi-reluctant acceptance face and voice. He tilted his head slightly to indicate the photo again. "So the guy who shot your brother; I bet the cops are watching him like a hawk, right? Just waiting for him to fuck up again?"

Paul scoffed. "Yeah, but I tell you what," he said, "sometimes I almost wish that butcher guy over in Miami was still around. That would solve this problem for us; know what I mean?"

Dexter stared blankly for a moment, and then changed his expression to indicate recollection. "Oh! Do you mean that guy that chopped up a bunch of killers and dumped them in the harbor a few years ago? Didn't that turn out to be a rogue cop or something?"

"That's the guy." Paul confirmed. He leaned in very close; Dexter could tell from his breath that he'd had a few of those cocktails by then. "I'll tell you something; if he was still around and came looking for this punk on my watch, I just might have been looking the other way at the time if you catch my meaning. I'm not the only one, neither; Pedro was a good kid and a damn good cop. Nobody on the force had a bad word against him."

Dexter nodded slowly, doing his best to maintain a somber expression. _That's good to know_.

"Well, hey who could blame you, right?" He said. After a pause, he raised his bottle again to offer a toast. "To Pedro, my dad, and all the fallen good men and women on the force" he offered.

"I'll drink to that." Paul said agreeably. They toasted and drank. Then Dexter ordered himself one more and stuck around to do some small talk before excusing himself to get himself home to the wife. He had the information he wanted; and it was even better than he thought. Catching Ace while the cops are asleep at the switch just might be easier than he could have hoped. Even if they saw something that looked like Ace might be in danger, they might not care enough to stop it.


	5. Chapter 5

_Miami, Florida_

As Reid expected, Astor wasn't much help with adding insight to the Original Bay Harbor Butcher case. She was, after all, ten years old when the case broke. She did remember her brother Cody was at first terrified of him, but later thought of him more like something from a comic book. Besides that, all she really knew was what she saw on the news when she happened to pay attention to it, what classmates talked about in school, and tidbits she may have overheard Dexter Morgan mention when he was over. Morgan was dating her mom at the time – he was, in effect, a stepfather figure.

Kevin found nothing that appeared too out of sorts with her digital history. Actually, the only thing that seemed at all unusual was a flower shop in San Diego. She had herself listed as a frequent customer and contributed a lot to the correspondent page of Fisher Flowers, San Diego; owned by Jennifer Fisher.

The file that Garcia put together, however, was another matter altogether. It added plenty of insight into the person of Debra Morgan. Of particular note in the interviews with Dr. Voegel was her confession. She confessed to the shooting death of Captain Maria LaGuerta in order to protect her adoptive brother Dexter. She claimed that LaGuerta was obsessed with him; obsessed with the notion that he was the Butcher and that he framed Doakes. There was also the suicide attempt; in which she also tried to take Dexter with her. The interview notes weren't quite clear as to why this was the case, but there were indicators of a great deal of tension around a family secret; something to do with Harry Morgan, their father. Voegel also went into detail about some of her methods and means of helping Debra come to terms with her feelings of guilt and remorse; most of it pretty standard stuff involving reliving the memory to gain clear perspective and accepting her accountability. No indication that she should turn herself in and admit to covering the crime up to look like a drug bust gone wrong, though. That interested Spencer; why wouldn't Voegel encourage Debra Morgan, who otherwise appeared to have a sterling career in law enforcement, to do the right thing? For that matter, why didn't Voegel report this finding herself? Parts of the file were redacted; was the answer in the redacted segments?

Reid took out the Jonah Mitchell file and looked at both of them side by side. Both Mitchell and Debra were patients of Voegel, neither of them went on official record with their confessions (Jonah confessed to killing his mother after his sister killed herself). Both had had direct contact with Dexter Morgan, and of course Voegel had had direct contact with Dexter as well; in fact some of the sessions with Debra were also with Dexter, though those records were almost completely redacted. Jonah also indicated that Dexter paid him a visit in Kearney, and knew the truth about what happened to his mother- or figured it out. With the Jonah Mitchell file, the most interesting thing was that Jonah indicated that he knew, or at least suspected, that his dad was not on the run but dead. What made that interesting was that it was also known now that Dexter Morgan, under the alias Kyle Butler, was trying to set the Mitchell family free of Arthur's reign of dominance. It had been confirmed that Arthur Mitchell was indeed Lundy's 'Trinity Killer'. Jonah's accounts with Voegel weren't a confirmation that Dexter had anything to do with Trinity's disappearance and possible death; not quite. It was a close thing, though; certainly something to press. If Voegel's notes revealed anything about the linguistics behavior of Jonah, then Jonah might actually want to tell all. Reid and Kevin were scheduled to talk to Matthews today, and then Batista. There was about three hours in between those two interviews; that should be enough time to also talk to Jonah Mitchell.

Kevin joined him in the hotel lounge.

"Wow, I thought I was an early riser." He said. "Yet here you are, up and dressed, ready to go."

Unsure how to respond, Reid simply thanked him. Then they both ordered breakfast and began to hash out what they were going to talk to Matthews about, worked Mitchell into their schedule, and discussed what they their goals were in regards to Captain Batista. For some reason, Reid was a little surprised at how efficient and professional Kevin's approach to work actually was; but then again he hadn't really worked directly with him very often. It was usually by proxy through Garcia, who was certainly excellent at what she did, but also very unconventional.

 _Washington, DC_

The team, minus Reid, filed into the conference room where Unit Chief Emily Prentiss waited with Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia. It was Barnes that advised Prentiss that SSA Dr Reid would be away on a special assignment along with Kevin Lynch, and when Emily asked Garcia if she knew anything about it, Garcia denied it. The trouble was that Garcia might be brilliant, but she was a terrible liar when it came to the people she cared about. Emily knew without a doubt that Garcia knew something, but was either unable or unwilling to talk about it. Prentiss decided to let it go for now; at least until the matter they had to deal with right now was addressed.

"Good morning," Prentiss greeted. "All of you please feel free to make yourselves comfortable as this is not going to be an outgoing case review; instead someone from another department is just coming to us for a consultation." She looked at Garcia. "Garcia, please introduce our guest today."

Garcia clicked her clicker and one of the screens came on to show a pretty blonde in her early thirties, clearly sitting in an office in front of a laptop. The background behind her suggested it was the office of a State Police Department; the crest directly behind indicating she was in California.

"Ashley Seaver," SSA David Rossi exclaimed, the first one at the table to recognize her. When Emily came to think of it, Rossi may have been the only one currently at the table that was with the BAU when Seaver was on the team; JJ may have been, but Prentiss thought she could have been away briefly. "Long time no see! How are things over at Domestic Trafficking?"

"Hi, Dave," Ashley greeted back. "To be honest, I'm not quite sure; I was hoping that you guys might be able to take a look at something and tell me what you think."

"For those who don't know who this is," Emily chimed in, "let me introduce you to Agent Ashley Seaver from over at Domestic Trafficking. Years ago, she was with us here in the BAU- in fact you could say she pretty much started her career with Bureau with us and transferred shortly afterwards." She turned to the screen. "It's good to see you, Ashley. How can we help?"

"Thanks," Ashley replied. "Garcia, can you put up the photos I sent you?"

"Alright," Garcia answered. "Can I just say that putting these up is bound to break your hearts first? Well, I guess I just did say it, didn't I? So I suppose I can say it, because I just did, so asking was kind of redundant..."

"Garcia..." Tara Lewis interrupted gently.

"Oh, right," Garcia said sadly, and then clicked her clicker to reveal a set of eighteen photos. At first glance it might have appeared that they were all pictures of the same person, until one was to look more closely to notice the slight differences in features. These were photographs of eighteen different boys aged between eight to twelve years old, all blond and of similar build.

"You are looking at file photos of eighteen missing persons that have been reported over the past three years." Seaver said. "Though most of them are from California, you will see that several are also from out of State, and all were last seen in Anaheim; either in or near the Disneyland area. All have vanished without a trace."

"Well, One thing goes without saying," Simmons commented. "There's definitely a pattern."

"That's why we're currently running on the theory that this has something to do with some kind of organized group; perhaps a pedophile ring."

"That's certainly possible." Alvez said. "Anaheim is a short drive away from Mexico. Young, healthy, blondes are quite the commodity down there. They're seen as exotic."

"I hate to be the one to make the darkness of this even darker," Rossi said, "I mean, of course we'd have to hope for the best, but at the same time we'd have to be prepared for the worst."

"Wait, how can this be any worse?" Garcia asked.

"He means that there's a good chance all of these boys are already dead." Ashley answered plainly. "Yes, Dave, that possibility has been duly noted."

Garcia clamped her mouth shut. For a moment Emily thought she might burst into tears, but Garcia managed to hold it together. In light of how nasty this particular matter was, Prentiss thought her inquiries about Reid and Lynch could wait a little longer.

"You guys do see that's there's another pattern, right?" JJ pointed out. When everyone looked at her with curious interest, she continued. "Look at the dates the boys went missing."

On the screen, Ashley perused her files on a tablet. The team looked up at their screens, focusing on the dates. Ashley gasped. Lewis tensed up in her seat. Simmons and Alvez exchanged glances.

"I'll be damned." Rossi muttered.

"What?" Garcia asked. "What am I missing? I mean I can do the math to see that it works out to about one boy every two months, but... "

"They're all on or around holidays." Alvez answered. "Look; the week between Christmas and the New Year, Thanksgiving long weekend, Halloween, Labor Day Weekend, Easter Long Weekend, that kind of thing."

Garcia's face scrunched up in disgust. "That's just sick! Why aren't we on this case? Whoever is behind this has to be brought down!"

"It makes perfect sense, though." Lewis said.

"Disneyland is a major tourist attraction." Simmons concurred. "That alone would make for a target rich environment, even with such specific tastes."

"Nobody here disagrees with you, Garcia." Prentiss soothed. "The problem is that we haven't been invited in by local or State authorities. The only reason Ashley is there now is because of the possibility that has to do with human trafficking."

"I might be able to do something about that." JJ said before Garcia could object. "With Garcia and me both on it, I seriously doubt there's anything we couldn't make into a Federal case."

"We'll deal with that in a moment." Emily said. "For now, let's just see what we can do to help from here. Ashley, what else do you have for us?"

Ashley Seaver began to lay out the details of her investigation so far.

 _San Diego, California: two days later_

Alberto Carman Eltoro lived, Dexter noted, in a surprisingly good neighborhood. He couldn't explain to himself why, but for some reason he had it in his head that he would live in a slum. Apparently his business was very lucrative. Or at least it was; but with the police watching him around the clock he had to be a good boy.

Dexter had been watching him for a couple of days now, not that it had been an easy task; what with having to teach the Code to Harrison, going about starting up a Courier Business, and spend time with Hannah. _If there was a God, I'd thank him for Hannah; she's way more patient with me than I deserve._

For all appearances, Alberto Eltoro really was being a good boy. His routine was even boring; as far as what one might think of what a drug dealer's life is supposed to look like. Then again, Dexter knew from direct experience in contending with people like Eltoro that he was a fairly common pattern. He rarely left the house, except of course to walk Tyrone, his 200 pound Rottweiler. Ace had a dog. That was going to be a problem. In fact, that was likely to be an even bigger problem than the cops; if Alvarez was telling the truth, there was a good chance they wouldn't see anything suspicious happening to Eltoro even if they did see. Besides, Dexter was quickly picking up on the pattern of the San Diego PD shift changes. He was aware of when, during the turnover of the shifts, there would be the least amount of uniforms on the streets and when there would be a lull of about half an hour between each watch over Alberto. As the police were divided into three eight hour shifts, that gave him a few windows of opportunities to work within. It would be tight, but not impossible. The next big problem, the real problem, was Tyrone the Rottweiler. Before he could get near Ace, he'd have to ditch the dog.

 _In the Air_

The remainder of the time spent in Miami amounted to little that supported Spencer's theory. Matthews offered nothing of use; in fact he got a little indignant when Reid and Lynch brought up LaGuerta and her reopening the Original Bay Harbor Butcher case. He insisted that all that really did was exposing more evidence that confirmed that James Doakes was indeed the Butcher. Despite this, Reid had noticed that there was something in the way Matthews carried himself that suggested he had some reservations; perhaps he was only dismissing any of these reservations out of a sense of loyalty to the Morgan family. It was no secret that he and Harry Morgan were friends.

Captain Batista yielded even less. He admitted that he had indeed helped Dexter disappear during the aftermath of the Brain Surgeon case, and suggested that if there was a problem with that, then they could press charges right then and there. In regards to the idea that Dexter may have framed Doakes, Batista flat out refused to hear it. His body language told Reid that if Batista was lying, he didn't know it; he really believed that there was no doubt Miami Metro and Frank Lundy got the right guy; as little as he might have liked the idea that a man he thought of as good cop with high principles could have gotten that sick.

Jonah Mitchell wasn't much better than the other two; all he really had was experiential evidence that spoke to Dexter's behavior. He relayed that, during a Thanksgiving dinner he joined the Mitchell's for, Dexter 'went psycho' when Arthur started to beat on Jonah. After being reassured that there was no way Dexter would ever get anywhere near him, or even know that he had anything to do with any knowledge divulged, Jonah described how Dexter 'choked dad out with his belt, dragged him by the neck from the living room to the kitchen, and was about to carve him up with a kitchen knife like a turkey'. He also reported that Dexter had said: 'I should have killed you when I had the chance.'

This, obviously, was the start of a pattern, unless it was an isolated incident. If it wasn't isolated, it would appear that seeing children in danger was a key stressor to bring out a violent response in Dexter. Judging from Jonah's account, when a violent response presented itself in Dexter, it was nearly uncontrollable; which was not a surprise to Reid at all. Often the most controlled psychopaths in day to day life tend be the most frenzied when their control loses its grip. While airborne, He asked Kevin to see if he could find any records of violent outbursts from Blood Spatter Analyst Dexter Morgan.

"Well, there was a time he punched out a State Cop when he got charged for damages after a hit and run accident." Kevin said shortly. "I know that doesn't match the behavior you're looking for, but it did happen near the end of the Trinity case."

Spencer thought that over. Around the same time as the Thanksgiving dinner incident; so it still fit in that it showed a sign of devolution. "That's actually good. It helps. Is there anything else?"

"Not really..." Kevin replied, but then brightened and advised Spencer to hold on second, because he thinks he might have seen something in Astor's Blog. He then went about the business of running a search, and then hacking into Astor's Blog account in order to access her private entries. Once that was done, he mumbled something about Astor's password being an actual good one, and said more clearly that it would take him a minute or two find the one he thought there was something interesting.

"Well, here's something." Kevin said quietly. "Not what I was looking for, but still interesting. It seems Astor has taken to sponsoring a couple of companies on her Blog. Two in fact; one is Fisher Flowers, the other is Castle Couriers. Both are based n San Diego." He fell quiet for a minute or two.

"Aha! Here we go!" He exclaimed finally. "I knew I saw something juicy here. See, her personal Blog is kind of a diary and memoirs thing. Right here, she says that Dexter once found out their neighbor was trying to get all sweet with her mom, so Dexter punched his lights out." He clicked to another page.

"She next recalls a lot of her feelings following her mother's murder. Mostly what you'd expect; including initially blaming Dexter for not caring, saying that life only got worse after he and her mom got together, and wishing he was the one who died. You know, Pre-Teen venting. Anyway, after that, she and her brother Cody moved in with their grandparents in Orlando. Then she talks about a time she and friend of hers ran away and tried to hide out in their old house because her friend's step dad was beating on her. Dexter managed to mend fences with Astor by – and I quote – 'scaring the living shit out of the step dad' and actually telling Astor he was proud of her for sticking her neck out to help a friend. The fact he didn't mention her showing up in Miami drunk as a skunk didn't hurt matters, either."

"I see." Reid replied. "Now we have accounts that reveal that Mr Morgan may not be as squeaky clean as many of his former coworkers think. We also have documentation revealing a distinct dark side."

"Do you think it's enough to do anything with?"

"Not yet," Reid answered. "But it does give us some ground to work on since it establishes a degenerative pattern of behavior." What Spencer did not mention, mainly because it went without saying, was that even if they had enough they still had the obstacle of actually finding him.

 _Miami, Florida._

Astor Morgan was a little bit worried. In her apartment after a shift at the precinct, she noticed that someone was in her system. None of the activity was outright malicious, but someone was being nosy. What really got to her was the fact that whoever it was, they were looking at her private Blog. Even worse, they seemed to be fixated on entries about Dexter. This right on the heels of Dr. Reid and that other tech geek were poking around asking about Dex. It wasn't too hard to figure out who was most likely behind the hack. That was what worried her.

How long until they figured out who ran Fisher Flowers and Castle Couriers? How long until they figured out where Dexter, Harrison and Hannah were? How could she, Astor, give them a heads up? Was it possible to use Uncle Joey to run either recon or maybe some interference up there in Washington? More importantly, could she do it without raising any red flags with the FBI now they are obviously monitoring her movements?

 _Washington, DC_

By the time Reid and Lynch returned to the BAU office in Quantico, the team had already finished their discussion with Seaver regarding the missing boys in Anaheim. In fact, their official shift was done, and most, including Emily Prentiss and Jennifer Jareau, were on their way out. They were on their way to meet with Will and his new partner (actually Sergeant), and invited Reid to come along, but Reid insisted he had some reports to fill out and wasn't sure how long it would take.

Figuring that there was little point in asking what the big deal was, Emily let it go; if whatever Spence was doing on behalf of Barnes was likely to have an effect on the team, he would tell them. She got into the elevator with JJ and started down to the parking garage. On the way down, JJ's phone rang. She took the call, and by the sound of it, Will was on the other end. JJ started by saying they were on their way right now, and then stopped, listened, cursed mildly, paused again, and then said she'd ask.

"It's Will," She told Prentiss. "His new Sergeant just called in with a new case; it looks like a body dump over on K Street; probably a one off thing. He has to take it, though; he's asking if we want to come and take a look and see if we can add anything."

Emily eyed JJ suspiciously. "What is it with you two?" She asked. "Why on earth are you so keen for me to meet Will's new acquisition?"

"What are you talking about?" JJ replied, doing her best to look innocent. It was a look that Emily had come to know all too well. It was almost comical; even if it was the exact same look she employed often to get witnesses and suspects alike to open up.

"Don't give me that look." Emily grinned. "You're trying to set me up, aren't you?"

JJ changed her expression to an animated expression of shock bordering on one that was meant to look almost hurt. It was so over the top she may as well have confessed that her game was revealed. Emily groaned in mock protest; she didn't actually mind so much. Sergio the cat was a great companion, but a girl had needs too. Joey was great for that, but he was in Miami, and there was no commitment set in stone; Emily had no doubt he probably had other options going on that were closer and much more accessible, too.

"Alright," she said feigning reluctant resignation. "Let's go and check it out; show me my match, oh matchmaker."

When they got to the scene at K Street, it was all taped off and CSI was already there. The Uniforms that tried to stop them from entering the scene backed off immediately at the site of their credentials; one of them even pointed to where the Lieutenant and new Sergeant were.

They made their way to them, and Emily stopped dead in her tracks the moment she saw who the Sergeant was; it was Joey Quinn.


	6. Chapter 6

_Washington, DC_

The way that Em swallowed air; like she just got a bad lump in her throat or maybe threw up in her mouth a little, told Joey Quinn that now was definitely the time to act all casual. He kept his cop face on and made a point to make this a business call; like the Feds were just here for a consult and nothing more. It was pretty clear right at the start that his little surprise appearance in the Capital wasn't going quite the way he pictured it in his head. Internally he started kicking his own ass.

He always did this to himself; he fell hard and fast for a woman, then went and acted without thinking and screwed shit up. He did that when he asked Deb to marry him, he did that when he fell for that Koshka girl and nearly destroyed his career trying to get her out, and he just when he thought he got a grip on his life after losing Deb a second time, he went and did it again with Em. Now he was stuck in DC working with one of her partner's husband. He could just hear Deb telling him how he really stepped on his own dog-fucking dick this time. He could just hear her saying he should have at least talked to Em about maybe taking a transfer out here first instead of just dropping in on her lap like some kind of stay cat.

Taking a quick look at Will and his wife JJ told him this didn't look the way they hoped, either. Well, then, at least maybe they could clear out of this botched meet quick. Then Quinn could try and figure out a way to salvage the mess he went and made.

"Nice of you to drop in," Quinn said casually.

"No problem." Emily replied. She was smiling and trying to sound casual back, but it came off as cold to Joey. Her eyes basically seemed to be asking him what the fuck he was doing here. "So you're the guy that Will brought in."

"Yeah, that would be me." Joey confirmed. "It's good to see you again." He leaned forward, extending his hand. Emily took it and they shook.

"So what do you have here?" Prentiss asked; straight to business.

"Caucasian Male, gunshot fatality," Will broke in. "We originally thought maybe it was a drive by; until Sergeant Quinn here pointed out there's no spatter on the scene." Em glanced over at Will; did she catch what Joe figured? Was she guessing that Will might be trying to up-sell him?"

"Also, there's no sidewalk on this stretch of the street." Quinn added. "That might not mean much, but it seems unlikely to me a guy in a suit this nice would be walking along here."

JJ pointed west. "There is a prostitution stroll about two blocks that way." She suggested.

"Em wrinkled her nose. "It's possible, but this guy looks like that stroll might be a little bit low-class for his tastes." She said. "My take would be that this is a dump site."

At least she was supporting his theory. If it was a drive by there would be blood and brain matter all over the place; probably even carried up and down the street by traffic. That meant she thought he was right. This scene was too clean to be anything but a dump. The question that had to be asked was who was this guy and why was he dumped here? He had no ID on him, and his teeth were smashed up bad enough to make it seem unlikely dental records would do any good. Quinn even took a peek at his fingertips and they looked like they were chemically burned; his entire palm was done, by the look of it. At any rate, Will asked the question.

"Whoever did this," he said finally, "it looks like they knew what they were doing." He showed them the teeth and the chemical burns. "I'm starting to think we might be dealing with some come of contractor. One thing is clear; whoever it is is trying to keep us from identifying his victim for a reason. It could be organized crime."

"What makes you say that?" Emily asked.

Quinn rolled up one of the sleeves on the victim's suit to reveal a series of tattoos. "Those are similar to markings I've seen before." He said. "A few years ago on a case involving the Russian Mob in Miami that I was able to make inroads with from connections back when I was on Vice."

"That's as good a place as any to start." Will agreed, "but there's something about his guy that makes me feel like I've seen him before; but not criminal. I'm thinking maybe somewhere on the Hill."

Quinn was no expert profiler, but he was good with witnesses and with interviews and interrogations. He took a look at Emily, and for just a second he thought he saw a brief flicker in her eye. It suggested to him that she made a connection.

"There's always been rumor and innuendo that a lot of Russian Mobsters infiltrated into the government." She stated. "I might be able to get some insight into that angle; I have some connections of my own."

By then forensics and CSI were arriving; the scene was being processed. Em and JJ were about ready to leave. Quinn was disappointed that so far his surprise was not working the way he saw it working in his head, but since they both had ways in with the Russians there was a chance they'd end up working together, so it wasn't a total loss.

 _San Diego, California_

Frank Castle and his Courier service was proving to be a whole lot more lucrative than Dexter thought it would be; apparently there were plenty of people who were unhappy with US Postal Service. Already he was getting more orders than he really knew what to do with across the state. There was an upshot to that, of course; it gave him plenty of reason to be driving around in his van without arousing any suspicion.

The big trick was meshing all three parts of his life together. It was a trick that was a lot harder than he remembered it being.

 _Who are you going to be?_ Harry asked him. _Are you Frank Castle the family man and entrepreneur, or Dexter Morgan the family man and serial killer?_

"I'm going to have to figure out a way to be both." Dexter replied.

 _And how does Harrison fit into that picture? Which part of your double life is he going to fit into, or is he going to live in both, too?_

"He's going to have to." Dexter answered. "After all, that's part of the Code, isn't it?"

 _Well that's just fuckin'_ perfect!Deb argued. _You're going to turn him into another avenging shitangel like his dearly demented daddy._ She scoffed. _You're back in business a few months and you're already making an impossible mess. If I wasn't dead I'd need a fuckin' drink._

"What I need is for you to stop worrying. There's no reason why Harrison can't be Harrison Castle, son of the courier and my son with his Shady Co-host at the same time." Dexter answered. "After all, that's exactly who he is. Now, both of you have to stop talking for a minute so I can focus on what I'm going to do ditch Tyrone."

 _Why don't you just use what shit you've got on hand?_

Dexter lit up a little at that. He suddenly saw a way to get in close to Alberto and deal with Tyrone. "You know what, Deb? Despite your sarcasm you just gave me an idea. Thank you."

 _What have you got in mind, Dex?_ Harry asked.

"I think Ace is going to be getting a special delivery."

 _Quantico: two days later_

Sitting in the round table room, Dr. Spencer Reid found himself having mixed feelings about his findings during his sojourn with Kevin in Miami. While he did feel comfortable that they found enough of a behavior pattern to put Dexter Morgan under investigation, there wasn't really enough evidence to arrest him even if they knew where to find him. In fact there was no evidence at all; if anything, the apparent evidence pointed away from the former blood spatter analyst of Miami Metro Homicide. This was of course all reported to Barnes; and she seemed satisfied with the findings, oddly enough. Actually, she went so far as to imply that she would be setting up a silent manhunt for Dexter Morgan.

Today, however, the team was called together on some sort of priority. This was one of the rare times that Spencer was the first one in the room other than Garcia. Just before the others came in, she indicated to him that she had found something, but it would have to wait until after this case was reviewed. Apparently it had implications that could potentially have global repercussions. That by itself made this one interesting.

Finally the rest of the team filed in.

"Thank you for coming in on such short notice." Prentiss greeted them. "I'm going to ask you to cut the chatter to a minimum so we can get started." She waved her hand at Garcia. "Garcia, if you could get us started, please."

"Yes, of course," Garcia said, apparently as stunned at how sterile Emily had suddenly become in her conduct; something was different about her today. Garcia clicked her clicker and an image of a gunshot victim, left on what looked to Spencer like K Street. So this was a local case. "Two days ago, Lt. Will LaMontagne and Sgt. Joseph Quinn called us in to help with the identity and investigation of this man, who was found shot in the head on our very own K Street not far from a low-end prostitution stroll." She started. "His identity was difficult to place due to the fact that his teeth were smashed from his mouth and his fingerprints were burned off chemically. However Sgt Quinn recognized some of the victims' tattoo markings as being possibly associated with organized crime; most likely Russian, Ukrainian, or Austrian."

"That makes sense," Rossi interjected. "The removal of teeth and fingerprints as forensic countermeasure sure sounds like the work of a professional to me."

"So this is a mob thing." Luke Alvez chimed in. "Could be connected to the prostitution stroll he was dumped near."

"Another thing we can't afford to overlook is the chance that there is overlap between the underground, police, and government- or at least so it's been rumored." Simmons added.

"This is why we have to treat this case with a great deal of care." Emily interjected. "We could be dealing with a great deal of red tape here; especially since we have confirmed his identity just this morning." She looked at Garcia. "Go ahead, Penelope."

Garcia clicked her clicker and the image changed to a much cleaner photo of the victim. Reid recognized him instantly, and understood the implications that Prentiss was talking about.

"That's Pavel Sterlingov, a Lieutenant of the Ukrainian Underground." He said quickly. "One of the main reasons he's been basically untouchable is because of his older brother Danko Sterlingov, the Ambassador."

"Give a gold star to the boy wonder; that's who we're talking about and the situation we're dealing with." Garcia said. "We can thank Emily's mother for her role in verifying that Mr. Danko Sterlingov is currently operating in the Embassy here in the united Sates."

"I'm sure you can see why this case has to be handled carefully." Prentiss interjected. "We have two angles to look at; we're going to have to investigate this on a street level as if organized crime is involved, and we're going to have to reach out to the Embassy, specifically Sterlingov. The street level investigation will be coordinated with DC Metro; Sgt. Joseph Quinn has taken lead as he has had previous experience in both vice and organized crime."

"So how are we dividing the team?" Lewis asked.

"I'll be coordinating both parts from here." Prentiss replied. "JJ, Simmons and Reid will be going to the Embassy. Rossi, Alvez and Lewis, you're working with Sergeant Quinn."

As Emily was laying out the strategy, Reid noted that both JJ and Garcia needed to work on their Poker faces. JJ's wasn't bad, but she did reveal a tell that said she was a little surprised and maybe confused by Emily's decision. Garcia, however, had no Poker face at all; if Emily hadn`t had her back turned to her; Prentiss would have seen Garcia visibly cringe once she heard that Emily would be staying at Quantico. Of course Spencer understood why; Emily being here would make it that much more difficult to pass on whatever it was she think she`s found. The two respective teams got up and started out. Finding out what was bothering JJ would be simple enough; whatever Garcia had would just have to wait.

 _San Diego, California_

 _Tonight is_ the _night._

 _Hannah came up with a way to get Tyrone the dog out of the way a lot faster than I expected. I don't know what exactly I`ll be dosing him with; I didn't ask. Whatever it is, she mixed it with some hamburger. Now I have a burger patty in a Tupperware container which I plan on feeding to Tyrone. Well, not me exactly; dogs hate me so I won't be able to get close enough. That`s why Harrison is with me. I like to think of this as a kind of test run; as soon as the cops begin their shift change Harrison will toss the burger into the yard for Tyrone to chomp down on. Once the dog takes the bait, Hannah says, he`ll get incredibly sick within an hour. That will force Ace to take Tyrone to the vet._

 _Then, next shift change, while Ace is playing video games to take his mind off his beloved pet, he`s going to get a very special delivery from Castle Couriers. Meanwhile, Harrison will be setting up a kill room, the location of which he will text me._

 _So tonight's_ the _night._

Dexter watched carefully as the cops pulled away from their post in front of the cop killer`s house.

"This is good." Dexter commented. "We're at shift change; that means all the cops will be in the office for about half an hour doing debriefing. It gives us a window."

"The police can't catch us if they can't see us." Harrison said. "The best way to avoid getting caught is to make it appear that no crime has been committed."

Dexter nodded, smiling with a degree of pride. "That's right." He encouraged. _Of course in this case we have an added advantage in that most of the cops don't even care what happens to this guy._

Harrison grabbed the Tupperware container and skateboard as he left the van. Opening the container, he wheeled down the street in the direction of the house. Passing it, he tossed the dosed burger over the fence. He then turned the corner at the end of the block, vanished for a bit and then finally knocked on the side of the van from the other side before climbing back in.

"So now what happens?" Harrison asked.

"Now we wait." Dexter answered. "Timing is crucial, son. We need the dog out of our way, and we will have to wait until the next shift change. As it is, we have about an hour; are you hungry? We can get some drive thru."

"Yeah, that sounds good." Harrison admitted. "Can we get chicken?"

"Chicken it is!" Dexter announced, and then pulled away to make their way to a nearby KFC drive thru.

 _The Ukrainian Embassy_

"So JJ, what's going on with Emily?" Spence asked her just before they got to the Embassy. Of course it would be Spence that would bring it up; it would be him who even noticed something was amiss. Not only because of his big brain, but they had known each other so long they can practically read each other like books.

"Why do you ask?" JJ countered.

"I'm just wondering why she's sitting this one out." Spence replied. "Does it have something to do with that Quinn guy? I thought they were kind of a thing."

JJ had to admit; Spence was pretty quick on the uptake. He sometimes misses stuff like that, but not today. "Yeah, I think it might." She said. "Will got his application and I recognized his name. I thought it might be a good thing for the two of them to be closer together. I guess I was wrong; she seems to be trying to avoid him now."

Spence nodded sympathetically. "Let me ask you something." He said. "Does that sound familiar to you?"

JJ understood what he was referring to immediately. Her relationship with Will started off after they worked a case in New Orleans, and was kept on the down low until another case that involved a colleague of his in Florida.

"That was different." JJ insisted, knowing full well that it was, in all likelihood, no different at all. Thankfully, Spence let it go at that. Did he buy that the situations were indeed different, or did he feel like his point was made? Jennifer would guess the latter if she were pressed. Either way, his point was well made; Emily and Joe would have to sort it out themselves. Also, JJ probably should not have drawn them together so quickly. She was sure Quinn was all in favor of taking things with Emily more seriously, so really it was up to Emily to see what happens next.

 _San Diego, California_

 _Night has finally come. The night sky is a little too clear for my liking, but the waning quarter moon is hanging low in it; so low that the smog generated by the municipality is making it appear much like the Miami moon. It is blood-red, like someone has taken a scalpel to the sky and made a crescent shaped slice; leaving a finger-nail shaped mark in air. Even if the sky is clear, the light given off by the moon is perfect. Even the Dark Passenger is pleased with the situation._

 _Right on schedule, Tyrone fell perilously ill an hour after taking the bait Harrison tossed over the fence. Much to his chagrin, Ace rushed his beloved 'boy' to the Vet; Harrison and I of course tailed him, and took note of which Vet Tyrone was at – details are important, you know. I am pleased to say that my son grasped this concept quite well, and was quick to pick up on what my next move was going to be._

 _Once that was established, I dropped Harrison off at home to collect the gear he would need to set up a kill room, and went back to my observation point to wait for the next shift change. Once there, I put on my company hat (not the whole uniform; that would be too much of a giveaway in the event of any unexpected observers), and waited. First it got dark. Then it got to be late. Then Harrison texted me his location, which I checked on the map on my device; it looked promising. It was an abandoned office building just a few blocks from the shore; remote enough that our chances of being disturbed were low. Then it got to be very late, and the cops began the process of shift change again._

"It's show time, as Harrison would say." Dexter said out loud.

 _Are you sure Harrison is ready for this, Dexter?_ Harry asked. _Grasping your condition and the Code in theory is one thing, but to see it put into practice is another thing altogether._

"I say this with no disrespect all." Dexter replied. "You were a good man who got into something way too deep for my benefit, and I thank you for that. I'm even sorry you had to do it. But just because you couldn't handle it doesn't mean he can't."

 _Fucking Christ on a rubber crutch, Dex!_ Now it was Debra talking. _He's just a kid! He can't know what he's getting into!_

"He was bathed in his mother's blood as a toddler, just like me." Dexter replied simply. "He's shown signs of its impact all his life, just like me. I'm sure those FBI experts would pick out behavior patterns if we let them, just like me. I tried to keep him out of it; I hoped I could spare him this life, just like Harry did me. Now I see that he's on the Dark Path, just like me. For God's sake Deb, he _is_ me, and now I'm Harry, except I can stomach what he is in theory as well as in practice."

 _So get his fuckin' head shrunk, or put him on meds. Don't lead him down the same shitroad you went down!_

"What, so he can be put in an institution? Or how about be turned into a zombie or a vegetable? You want me to put him in a chemical prison? No, Debs, I can't do that." With that, Dexter grabbed the small package with Ace's name and address on it in one hand, and from the glove compartment he selected a syringe that was filled with yet another cocktail courtesy of Hannah that would knock Alberto Carman Eltoro out cold long enough to set up the ritual. Even though he had to move fast, Dexter took pains to not rush his gait to the door. This was perhaps the most difficult part of all; the Dark Passenger was really quite anxious to do the deed and feed. His thoughts wandered for just a moment to his experimentation with addiction recovery as a way to cope with this need; he remembered hearing in a meeting once that when one relapses after a prolonged abstinence, one doesn't start where they left off, but as if they never stopped. That axiom seemed to have some merit right at that moment.

Approaching the door, he carefully removed the stopper from the needle of the syringe, put on his best dopey delivery man look on his face, and with gloved hands rang the bell. From the living room window he could make out some kind of driving game was being played. A moment after the bell rang, the game paused.

"Who's that?" Alberto called from his chair in the front room.

"Uhhhhmmmm..." Dexter stammered with his infamous dumbass voice. "Castle Couriers with a delivery for..."

"What the fuck you want, punk?" Alberto interrupted.

"I got a delivery for a mister Alberto Eltoro?" Dexter shot out, deliberately framing it as a question. "It's regarding someone named Tyrone?"

Just as Dexter figured on, that got Ace's attention. He could hear Ace rushing to the door. The moment the door flew open Dexter jabbed him with the needle and depressed the plunger, filling Ace's veins with Hannah's cocktail.

"What the fuck?" Alberto asked, already getting fuzzy. Dexter stuffed the package he didn't actually need into the waistband of his khakis and caught Ace as he dropped into his arms. Quickly Dexter dragged the cop killer to the van, ran back to close the front door, locking it from the inside before returning to the van (currently unmarked, the Company logo was magnetic and therefore removable) to drive to the location that Harrison selected.

For some reason that he didn't understand, Harrison Morgan wanted a cigarette. He'd never smoked before, so what was going on with that? The kill room was all set up, just as dad said it should be done and complete with all the little ritual fringes that he specified. The room itself Harrison understood, but he wasn't so sure about the point of the picture of the cop or why it was important to dad to show his target what they did. To him, it seemed like a kind of waste of time. The Shady Co-host was much more interested in making sure their punishments matched up with their crimes; in the case of the guy Dad was picking up, he should be shot in the head since he shot a cop – a good cop – in the head.

But what was with the desire for a smoke? Where did that come from? He got why bathtubs freaked him out a little; that was a holdover from how Rita Mom (his bio mom) was killed right in front of him. Even though he didn't really remember it clearly beyond weird little fragments of a baby crying in a pool of blood with more blood spilling out from the rim of a tub above him, and then his dad saving him, he guessed it made sense that kind of thing would stick in your head, buried deep down, where the Shady Co-Host slept most of the time. As far as he knew, neither of his parents smoked. Auntie Deb quit before he was even born, so why did he want one? It had to be the Shady Co-Host, but that didn't make any sense, either. He'd have to ask dad about it after they were done.

"Focus, Harrison." He admonished himself as he saw the van turn the corner down the block from where he waited. "It's Showtime."

Dad backed the van right up to the front door so that the rear loading doors of the vehicle lined up with the entrance into the building. Harrison opened the door as the van came to a stop. Dad killed the engine and climbed out to make his way to Harrison.

"It's ready." Harrison said.

"Show me." Dad ordered. Harrison led his father down the hall to one of the smaller offices that he found and chose.

Dad looked impressed. He looked around and nodded appreciatively.

"It's good, right?" Harrison asked.

"What can I say?" Dad replied. "It's perfect. Now come on, let's get our playmate."

Harrison and Dexter returned to the van to fetch the target; Harrison remembered his nickname was Ace and that he was a drug dealer that killed a cop. He knew that he basically walked on the charge because some other cop botched procedure. He couldn't quite remember his full name, though; Carman something, he thought.

With Ace still out cold, they dragged him into the room and set him onto the desk that Harrison rolled in from a different room. Once Ace was on the desk, Harrison grabbed the huge roll of plastic wrap and began to restrain Ace.

"Make sure you use enough to keep him from moving." Dexter reminded his son. "He's a pretty good size, and we don't want him breaking out. Trust me that can be problematic." He was, of course, remembering the issues he had with little Chino.

"Why don't we just use rope?" Harrison asked as he used as much wrap as he possibly could. Better too much than not enough, he reasoned.

"In the unlikely event that the body is found, ropes leave traces that can be traced back to point of purchase and then ultimately to the buyer." Dad replied. "The wrap will leave indentations on the skin, but it's generic enough to avoid being traced. It's just another precaution. Remember, the first rule of the Code is..."

"...don't get caught." Harrison finished. "I get it." He completed the process of restraining Ace. "That should hold him." He said.

Dad looked over Harrison's work and nodded again appreciatively. He pointed at the splash masks and the smelling salts, which Harrison collected. He put one of the masks on and handed the other, along with the smelling salts to his father.

Dexter snapped the salts under Eltoro's nose; Ace jerked awake. As was inevitable, he took a second to realize he was being held down. Predictably enough, he responded to this revelation with a curse and asking what was going on.

"Oh good, you're awake." Dexter said, just a little sardonically. "This next part doesn't work very well if you're still out of it."

Alberto Carman Eltoro struggled to get out of his bonds. Dexter placed his palm on Ace's forehead and pushed down hard until Ace grunted in pain and stopped struggling.

"What are tryin' to do?" Ace asked. "Do you think this is gonna mean shit?"

"It's always the same." Dexter said, smiling thinly. He sliced Ace's cheek and took a sample of his blood with an eye dropper. Harrison handed him a slide, which Dexter applied a drop onto. _My first New Friend._

"People like you always ask the same questions and try to challenge the relevance of what I'm doing." He paused briefly to place his pointer finger firmly between Eltoro's eyes. "Sometimes you ask why; as if you didn't know. I'm here to make you understand the consequences of what you've done." He grinned a little maliciously as he stepped aside to reveal a photograph of the cop he shot. "Now you're probably going to try to strike some kind of bargain."

Ace laughed. He actually laughed. "You think I'm gonna deal with you?" He asked. "You're a chickenshit psycho punk ass bitch. Not only that, you're fuckin' stupid on top of that. Cops are watching me around the clock, and then there's my boys to think about."

"None of them even know I have you." Dexter retorted. "By the time they realize you're gone, they'll all think you've slipped your leash. _There's no need to tell you the cops won't be looking all that hard for you._

Ace spat. The spittle spattered on Dexter's visor.

"Any last words?" Dexter asked.

"Fuck you." Ace replied.

"That's what I thought." Dexter said. With one quick and clean motion he plunged his blade into Eltoro's chest, piercing his heart. Deep inside, the Dark Passenger groaned in near orgasmic ecstasy at the look of shock on Ace's face as his life slipped away and the spark of life rapidly faded from his in eyes in direct correlation to the rate of the blood oozing from his wound and spreading out from under the wrapping.

When it was done, Dexter stole a glance at Harrison. With one look his Dark Passenger saw Harrison Shady Co-host, who looked like his hunger was sated, but as if by ground beef instead of Prime Rib. Dexter understood; whatever it was inside of them each respectively had certain needs, and of course those needs can be met a number of ways but nothing quite does it like the actual act itself.

 _Soon, son; you're learning a lot faster than I thought you would. You're picking up faster than I did, in fact. So your turn will come soon. I promise._

Harrison nodded slowly; as if he heard Dexter's thought. It was more likely that their exchange of looks said it better than words. In any case, it was clear that he understood he wasn't quite ready _yet._

So now we do the clean up and disposal." Harrison confirmed. Without even being told to, he handed Dexter the electric bone saw.


	7. Chapter 7

_Washington, DC_

Detective Sgt. Joe Quinn was reviewing what he and the Feebs had put together so far on the K street body dump, and trying not to dwell too much on what Em's reasons for avoiding him might be. For now at least it was apparent his big idea of surprising her was ill founded; he could almost hear Debra Morgan telling him he went and stepped on his dick. Whatever, he reasoned. It was done now, and he'd just have to deal with it.

One thing in the case that was getting more and more clear was that it was unlikely to have anything to do with the Embassy; even with the relationship between Pavel and Danko Sterlingov. Yes, the beanpole and Will's wife were able to determine that Danko was protecting Pavel from the law, but that was the end of it. They said it was out of a sense of family loyalty and nothing more; they also indicated they believed the Ambassador when he said he had nothing to do with any of the organized crime in his country.

So that meant this was most likely a rival mob thing. The Feds were likely to back out at this point, and that meant this case was bound to fall squarely into his, Quinn's, wheelhouse. It might take awhile, but he was sure he could find out who ordered the hit and who actually did the deed. Even this far north of Miami, he had a bit of a reputation in organized crime circles as a dirty cop. That sort of gave him an in; he was already getting approached by some minor leaguers that think they're bigger than they are with possible bribe offers. In short, a few of the mobs were trying to make friends with him, and he'd only barely started in DC. He could use that as cover, sort of like how Liddy did up until 2010; except Liddy actually was dirty and played both ends. Quinn intended to do it clean; first he'd clear it with Will and the Captain, and he'd keep proper records of his infiltration. It would be a long game, but he'd find the perp. The perk of this play would be he'd have an inside track with the scumbags.

Quinn's phone rang. Looking at the display, he saw a number he didn't recognize, and noted it was a Miami area code. The only people in Miami he could think of that might call him were either old crook contacts or with Miami Metro. Since the number wasn't from the later, Quinn was guessing this was a call from the former. It was weird, but possibly helpful.

"This is Joe Quinn." He answered."Thrill me."

"Hi Uncle Joey," Astor replied on the other end. "It's Astor."

"Hi, Astor!" he said back. "What's with the new number? Is that a new phone or something?"

"No, that's not it. I'm on a payphone." Astor answered. "Before you ask why, I'll tell you. It's a little harder to trace this way; at least if they're not thinking to look for it."

"What's going on?" Joey asked, alarmed. "Is someone harassing you?"

"Not directly," Astor answered. "The thing is I think the FBI might be trying to keep tabs on me because of Dexter. Dr. Reid and some Computer dork named Ken no, Kevin Lynch were just down here asking all kinds of questions about him and his role the Original Butcher Case. I think they might be looking for him. They even hacked my system to see if I was hiding anything they could use. Don't worry, they didn't find anything, but still, Dr. Reid is really smart and he might be onto something."

That wasn't good. It wasn't what Quinn needed right then, neither. Still, it might not be as bad as it seemed. But that wasn't really the issue at hand.

"Wait a second," He retorted. "I get how that can be a problem, but why are you telling me? I mean, what do you want me to do?" Even as the words came out of his mouth, he caught himself cringing; sure he'd gone and came off wrong, like he'd thought this was about him or something.

"Well, you're in DC, right?" Astor replied. "You're also close with that Unit Chief Prentiss? Well, since she's Dr. Reid's boss, I figured you could gauge his moves through her."

It wasn't a bad idea; there was just one tiny problem. Quinn told her that as of late SSA Emily Prentiss was all business with him; she was even avoiding any personal dialogue with him at all. Then he asked if she gave Dexter the heads up. He half expected her to ask him to do that through his secure line to Dex.

"Not yet, but I'm working out a way to do that. It's probably better if you don't know the details." Astor answered. Quinn had no problem with that; sometimes the whole don't ask don't tell policy worked out pretty good for all parties involved. At least she wasn't trying to get him to do it. He was about to ask her how she was doing; do the whole catch up thing, but before he could get a word in, Astor hung up on her end.

 _San Diego, California_

Home from school, Harrison Morgan – now known as Harrison Fisher – logged online on the family computer in the front room of their house. He initially intended simply to play some World of Warcraft, but then a public service announcement caught his attention.

Quite suddenly, Harrison found himself staring at himself on the monitor; it was a MISSING CHILD poster, last seen in Anaheim, California. He was about to go and tell mom that the authorities were on to them since he was technically 'missing' since he was spirited out of Florida when he took a double take and sighed with relief; the name was not his, nor anything close to any of his aliases over the years. Conveniently enough, all his aliases had the same first name and only changed his last name to match Hannah's, whom he thought of as his mother anyway. There was the woman in the tub, whom he knew was his biological mother, but Hannah was Mom.

Then the Shady Co-host started to stir; there was something about this poster that caught his attention, and it was more than the similarities to his physical appearance. He tried at first to dismiss the stir, but found that he couldn't almost immediately. He clicked away from the poster and keyed 'Missing Children in Anaheim' into the search engine.

What he found nearly sent his Shady Co-host into a wordless, yet frantic state. The first dozen or so images all looked a little bit like him. They were all from various states originally, many evidently tourists, but it was an obvious pattern. The Shady Co-host wordlessly muttered to him that these boys were all dead, not missing; they had to be. How could Municipal, State, and Federal Authorities not see that? That they all looked like him was an added interest; perhaps that meant whoever is doing this will target him as well. Harrison put his hand on his chest and was quickly fascinated by the racing of his own heart.

 _Dad and I should hunt_ him _We can find out who finds who first; it'll be like a game._

A notification came up in the bottom right corner of the monitor indicating a private message on Fisher's Flowers Website. To access Hannah – Mom's personal messages required a password. He, Harrison could probably easily crack the word, but out of respect for his Mom he left the search he was on and then went to go let her know about the message.

Hannah McKay – now known as Jennifer Fisher – came in from her garden to the front room to see the message on her website that Harrison told her about. She could have just thanked him and taken a look at it later, but Harrison seemed to think it was important she get to it sooner than later. There had been a number of years where it was just the two of them; when Dexter was 'dead', and over those years she had learned to trust Harrison's instincts. Perhaps it was an early sign of his 'Shady Co-host', but up until earlier this year she just thought of it as a kind of low cunning. At any rate, here she was in front of the computer and going to her Website. She entered her password to access her private messages.

The newest message was from O Star Puzzles and Games. Blinking once, she opened it immediately and hit PRINT before even looking at the actual message; it was one that should not have come to her business. O Star was a spoof site set up by Astor Morgan; it was one of the ways they had established to keep in contact years ago, when Dexter was thought to be dead and Hannah was in Argentina with Harrison.

Once the puzzle was printed, she deleted and shredded the message, and then took the printout to see what Astor had to say. The puzzle she submitted was of a game called Wonderword. In it, there was a seemingly random collection of letters, and then a set of words at the bottom. The idea was to find the listed words in the puzzle part and cross the letters that form the words out. Once all the words are found, there should be a bunch of letters left not crossed off; those letters will give you the Wonderword or phrase. The concept here was obvious; solve the puzzle, and have Astor's message.

Hannah took the puzzle with a pen and set to work. It wasn't even all that difficult to work out. In about five minutes, she had found all the words and was looking over the remaining letters to read the actual message. It read: "FEDS HERE LOOKING FOR DAD".

That was good to know. It was bad news, but at least they had a heads up. Hannah took the sheet and shredded that, too; there was no need to leave any trace of anything that might lead the Feds to them. Next she called Dexter. He was off on some delivery or another for Castle Couriers. She was actually happy to see his front business do as well as it was; she had no idea that there was so much animosity towards the postal service as there was. Castle Couriers was already getting requests out of state. Weirdly enough, there was a particular interest in his company in Wisconsin, of all places. There was even someone looking to buy into the business and set up franchise there.

 _Anaheim_

"Well! Who do we have here on this gorgeous afternoon?" Oscar Coalworth greeted the beautiful young boy and his mother that just entered his shop. He remembered every customer he ever saw walk through the door of his meat store, and these two were brand new. Granted, it was a big city and given his location in relation to Disneyland, he saw lots of people nearly daily, but his consistent customer base was relatively small and local. "Are we just passing through, or have we recently moved in?"

"We're new here!" the boy said enthusiastically. "We came from Seattle, Washington, but Mom and Dad split up and Mom and I moved in with Auntie Denise."

Oscar stood in mock contemplation as Mom smiled weakly and shrugged. "Denise said this was the place to come for meat." She said. "We're looking for hot dogs and ground beef for a barbecue, actually."

"Is that so?" Oscar asked as if he was directing the question towards the boy more than the mother. "In that case, I better say thanks to Auntie Denise, then. Anyways, you sure came to the right place! I just made up some of my very own dogs which should be perfect for your barbecue."

The mother thanked him and they worked out how much she wanted and what she owed. The whole time, Oscar Coalworth, proprietor of Oscar's Meats, played off like he was really dealing with the boy. The mother seemed rather pleased with the effort, and the boy was delighted with the idea that the friendly old man in the butcher shop was treating him like 'the Man of The House'. It was true; Oscar was getting quite old. On that day, he was pushing seventy years old. Surely, most people thought, he was harmless, even though his height sometimes caught people off guard. In many ways, his age served as perfect camouflage as a hunter. In the course of the discussion, he learned the mother's name was Danielle, her 'deadbeat ex husband' was named Charles, and 'the Man of the House' was named Lucas. That was the important part, knowing that beautiful blonde haired boy's name. He was a little bit lean, but sometimes lean meat made for good eating; it was good for jerky, at any rate.

"So Lucas, have you been to Disneyland yet?" he asked.

"We're going there for Thanksgiving!" Lucas told him. He looked up at Danielle, "Right, mom?" he asked.

Danielle laughed lightly. "That's the plan, so far." She replied.

That was lovely. It gave him just enough time to fatten the boy up just a little for flavor. Usually on holidays he was permitted to set up a kiosk in the fairgrounds to sell his jerky.

"Wonderful!" Oscar exclaimed. "Did you know that I have a trolley over there on holidays?" He reached on the counter beside him and pulled a strip of Hickory smoked jerky from a display jar. He handed the strip to Lucas. "I use it to sell my jerky, and I'd like you to try a free sample; with your mother's kind permission, of course."

Danielle nodded consent and Lucas grabbed the jerky, gobbling it up greedily. Judging from his hearty belch, Oscar guessed that Lucas enjoyed it. Danielle gently admonished her son, reminding him to say thank you. Lucas thanked Oscar, and mother and son left the store, Oscar wished them a good day, and that he hoped to see them soon.

 _Quantico_

Reviewing the information she had so for on the Sterlingov case, Emily Prentiss still felt sure the death of Pavel had more to do with the embassy than it did the street. Sure, Detective Quinn's theory of a gang hit made the most sense on the surface, but even in what was rumored to be a corrupt government, a known criminal in the family can be a huge hindrance. Joey, that was, Quinn, was a good cop with good instincts, but clearly he didn't understand politics; and for that Emily was actually a little bit jealous. She grew up in politics; her mother being an ambassador, so she understood how that sphere worked all too well –on a global level in several different countries. The nuances were different, but it was the same game everywhere; it was a game she hated. In that game, image was everything, and for Danko, Pavel was trouble. No matter how clean Danko was on paper, the fact he had a brother known to be in organized crime would be problematic.

And Danko was clean; that much was clear. He was also well connected. It would be easy enough for someone like him to take back channels to 'arrange' for a tragic death in the family. Most in the know would assume, as Joey did, that it was linked to Pavel's criminal activities and most likely gangland related. If Danko played it right, he might even look good for the trouble; like a brave ambassador that plugs through his obligations in the face of the tragic loss of his beloved, if misguided, brother. The way these circles ran; if she was right, then whoever did the actual killing wouldn't even give Danko up. There was also the factor of diplomacy in the situation. Even if Joey was right, that would still be an issue; it was almost certain that the Ukraine would want the killer of one of their countrymen subject to their laws. Either way, this was a mess. Emily wondered if Joey...Quinn... why was she doing that? She wondered if Quinn had any idea just how messy this was going to be.

Honestly, she knew why she kept vacillating between referring to him as Joey and as Detective Quinn; her head and her heart were torn on how to handle him being in DC. The fact he went to all the trouble to come all the way from Miami to be closer to her was touching, but it meant that he was closer, and that made what they had seem more real, somehow. It was only a matter of time before he figured out what a secret nerd she was, and that was the least of her concerns. Part of her liked the way things were all casual between them; no strings attached, no promises, no commitments. With him in DC she was bound to start getting attached to him, and that was always a dangerous thing...

...but she couldn't kid herself. One of the big reasons his being here bothered her so much was because she didn't see it coming, and she really should have. Of course he played himself like a player – even a bit of a PUA, but really he was all about commitment; that was evident in how hard he tries to play straight and fly right for the sake of the departed Debra Morgan. Emily let out a sharp breath and muttered a self-deprecating comment. How could she have missed that about Sgt. Detective Joseph Quinn? In retrospect, it was written all over him like ink on paper. There was also the fact that she secretly wanted him around; there was no sense in denying that anymore.

Emily Prentiss picked up her phone and dialled Joey's number. She contemplated making it sound like she was calling about the case, but decided against it. She might as well clear the air with the guy.

 _Washington, DC_

After shift, Dr. Spencer Reid pulled his vehicle up to the curb two blocks away from Penelope Garcia's apartment. He was trying to be discreet, but given the fact his car was an antique and highly distinctive it was unlikely that he would go entirely noticed. Still, in consideration of the relatively sensitive nature of the visit, some level of discretion was a good idea.

Satisfied that nobody too important was watching, Reid got out of his car, walked the two blocks and rang Garcia's bell. Garcia was expecting him, so she buzzed him in. Reid stepped into the fairy-land that was the residence of Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia.

"Believe me, I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about our job, but it's about time I finally get to show you this, boy wonder." She said, urging him in. "I mean this is a big deal...and by big I mean huge, as in game changing. It may be exactly the piece of the puzzle you've been looking for."

"You have proof that incriminates Dexter Morgan?" Reid asked, starting to get excited. "I mean his profile alone makes him suspect, but there's not enough to move in on him."

Garcia blanched a little. "I don't know about proof, but I have a feeling this is a thread that ends in proof." She said, leading him to her home computer and sitting him down. "Here, check this out." She reached beside him and clicked on the mouse in order to make a video file begin playback.

On the screen, a man who looked to be perhaps forty five years old was in head shot; much like an interview video. He was crying silently; tears streaming down his face. Off screen, a woman's voice assured him that everything was happening according to plan and that 'the Code' was 'meant for him, not you'.

"I know that," the man said, "but understanding the theory of the Code is one thing, but it's another thing altogether when you actually see it at work. When I walked in on him, it became clear to me that I had created a monster."

The video ended just as the woman was asking if he really thought he created a monster.

"Before you ask who that man is, I can tell you right now that I ran a facial recognition check and found a match." Garcia said, reaching over and clicking the mouse again to reveal a still photo of the same man, an image taken from Police Identification. The name read Det. Harold Morgan. "Dr. Big Brain, let me introduce you to Detective Harry Morgan of the Miami Metro Police; Homicide Division."

Reid immediately knew who he was. Harry Morgan was the adoptive father of Dexter Morgan, former blood-spatter analyst and biological father of Lieutenant Detective Debra Morgan of Miami Metro Homicide. When Dexter Moser was three years old, his mother Laura Moser was brutally murdered with a chainsaw in a shipping container right in front of him and his brother Brian Moser, who would later be revealed to be operating as the notorious "Ice Truck Killer" in Miami, Florida. At the time of Laura's murder, Harry was a uniform cop, and he took Dexter in; hoping to mitigate the traumatic damage done. To the rest of the world, it looked like his endeavor paid off. More and more Reid was thinking that was false – or if it was true, it wasn't in the way the world was led to believe. All records indicate that Harry later died of accidental overdose of medication in treatment for cancer. By the look of him in the video, it was shot not long before the end of his life.

"Let me ask this question; who was he talking to?" Reid asked.

"Good question," Garcia replied. "Voice print analysis verified that the woman off screen is Dr. Evelyn Voegel, whom I'm sure you are aware was known as the Psychopath Whisperer up until the time she murdered by Oliver Saxon, also known as the Brain Surgeon."

Reid was very familiar with Voegel and her work. She had written several papers that advocated for a number of unorthodox methods of treatment, in at least one case including a partial lobotomy, the case which clearly inspired Saxon, who carved out a piece of each of his victims' brain as a trophy. There was some speculation around that Saxon was in fact Voegel's son and that she had tried several of her treatments on him. And now here she was talking to Harry Morgan about something called the Code. Could this 'code' be another of her treatments?

"What do we have on this Code they are talking about?" he asked.

"I'll tell you what we have," Garcia answered, "we got zip, zilch, nada, bumpkiss, nothing. That's what we have on whatever the code is. I have no idea what they're talking about. Whoever is shredding the digital background of all things Dexter Morgan really knows their stuff. I just hope it isn't Dexter himself, because if it, then we might not ever find him again."

"But if we find his back up, we stand a chance of finding him." Reid said. "Do you think you can do that?"

Reid was half expecting Garcia to laugh and give him a playfully snide remark to the effect of asking if he had forgotten who he was talking to, but that's not we got. His question was greeted with an uncharacteristic silence. He looked up over his shoulder at her and saw a look of genuine concern.

"I'm honestly not sure." She said, her voice quivering. "I know that I'm a grand master of digi-fu, but there is always someone who's even better..."

"But there's no one more tenacious." Reid countered. It was true, too. There was nobody that he could think of that came close to Garcia when it came to persistence. "That's the real difference maker with you, Penelope. You never quit."

That seemed to make her feel better. "I'll make like a ninja turtle and find the shredder." She said; a renewed strength in her voice. She shooed Reid out of chair. Reid got up, thanking her for her good work, and asked her to get Kevin Lynch to see what he could find on 'The Code': and to cross- reference that with Dexter Morgan, Harry Morgan, and Dr. Voegel.

 _San Diego, California_

Dexter got home from a doing a few deliveries for Castle Couriers; it was starting to get late, but ever since his successful play date with Ace and Harrison he'd felt rejuvenated. Sleep was the last thing on his mind; not that he'd object to catching a few hours. That was also part of the deal; since the play date, he'd been sleeping incredibly soundly. Come to think of it, he'd noticed an improvement ever since he killed Jacob Elway. Overall, the world seemed more...balanced somehow.

He went into his office, where on the monitor of his computer he found a post-it. It was in Harrisons' writing. It read: "NEXT?" and then had a set of keyword search parameters written out in a cipher they had developed together. The cipher was actually Harrison's idea; and a good one, too. It would serve well as a means for them communicate and slow down anyone realizing what they were talking about. It was even better that the cipher was comprised of actual words which had different meanings. To the casual observer it would like an innocent note about something else entirely. To Dexter, though, it was clear that his son was proposing a new playmate.

 _Doesn't this bother you at all, brother?_ Debra challenged. _This is your fuckin' kid picking out people to track, hunt, and kill. What kind of fucked up family is this, anyway?_

"The same fucked up family that you're a part of, Deb." Dexter replied calmly. "He's accepting what he is and learning to embrace it and direct it into something that can be at least somewhat constructive."

 _Is that what dad said?_ Deb shot back. Then she raised her hands, exasperated. You know what? Fuck it. _Whatever gets you through the night, right?_

For the time being, that was about the best he could expect from Debra, and better than he actually did expect. She wasn't entirely wrong, after all; in many ways Harry did raise them differently- albeit out of necessity. In a lot of ways it could be argued that both ways of their upbringing consisted of an avalanche of bullshit. He thanked Deb and sat down to check what Harrison thought he might have found.

The link led to a page listing off a number of missing boys, all of them around Harrisons' age, and of similar description. The boys all went missing from the Disneyland area, though they originated from various parts of the country. It was like looking at multiple pictures of his son. That by itself was disturbing enough to rile up the Dark Passenger. He looked more closely to make sure none of them had Harrison's name or matched up with any of the aliases that he and Hannah had used. None of them did, so there was that, at least. There was, of course, the possibility that someone might mistake Harrison for one of the missing boys and make a well intended call...

 _You know that's not really what you're concerned about, Dexter._ Harry said plainly. Harry was right; as usual. How does he do that, anyway?

"You're right, it's not." Dexter agreed. "Someone is targeting kids."

 _Someone is targeting kids that look like Harrison._ Harry elaborated. _Someone in the area; how long until they take notice of him? You have to find them, Dexter. You have to find them and take care of them before that happens._

"We have to talk." Hannah said from behind him, standing at the threshold of his office door.

"Yes, we do." Dexter said darkly as he spun his chair to face her. Then he realized she might be talking about another matter altogether, and quickly decided it was better not to worry her about this just yet. "I mean, sure; what's going on?" He said, hoping to sound a little more cheerful.

Hannah stepped into the room with a sheet of paper in her hand. She handed it to him, saying it was a message from Astor. Dexter the paper and looked it over. It was a completed word puzzle in which, once solved revealed a message. The message read: FEDS HERE LOOKING FOR DAD.

Dexter blinked. For a moment he caught himself actually getting sentimental that Astor referred to him as Dad; that was a first. He had to blink again to clear his head of that; as sweet as it was. That was not the important thing. The important part was the message itself. The FBI was looking for him.

 _This is bad, Dex._ Harry announced in a tone that said he knew very well it was redundant to say so. _Think carefully, son, why would they be looking for you now, after all this time? Did you break from the Code?_

"This probably has to do with my coming out of hiding briefly to deal with Elway." Dexter replied both to Harry and to Hannah. He didn't apologize; it was something he had to do and they both knew it. "Did she give you any more details?"

"Not yet," Hannah replied, glancing over his shoulder at the monitor. "I think this was just meant as a heads up so we know to watch ourselves. What is that?

"Oh, that's just something Harrison found." Dexter answered. "He thinks it might be a good lead." He wasn't lying to her; exactly. He was more just downplaying how critical of lead it could be.

She came in closer to examine the screen more closely. Seeing it, she alternated her gaze from the screen to Dexter's face and back again. The look in her eyes said it all; there was no need to try to downplay anything, or to justify anything, either. She could see for herself what was happening. She nodded grimly.

"Do what you have to do." She said. Then she kissed him on the temple and quietly left the room. That was the great thing about Hannah. She understood exactly who and what Dexter was, and by extension who and what Harrison was becoming, and she loved and accepted them both anyway. She didn't have to precisely like this part of who they were, but she accepted it as part of the whole, and she loved the whole; warts and all, as it were. Besides, it wasn't like she could really judge wither one of them; she was also a wanted killer. How she was able to turn off the need and leave it all behind her was beyond Dexter's comprehension, but it gave her a means of getting the Dark Passenger and the Shady Co-host. Maybe she didn't have one like that. Maybe her killing was purely about self preservation. One thing was clear to Dexter; she seemed to kill only out of necessity, never out of need, nor seemed to get any pleasure out of the act.

 _She's not wrong, you know._ Harry said gently. _This one is about self preservation as well as need. You'll have to be extra careful now, but still..._

"I know that." Dexter cut him off, growing a little impatient. "I will be. Besides, I think I might know which Feds they are, and I might have a way to keep them at bay for now."

 _Oh yeah? And how the fuck are you gonna do that?_ Debra countered. _If you're thinking what I'm thinking, we're talking about a team of Lundy's. In case you forgot, just one of Frank Lundy damn near caught your ass. If it wasn't for Doakes screwing himself over and giving you all you needed to frame him you'd have been completely fuck a long time ago. How are you gonna beat a whole team of guys like Lundy?_

Dexter ignored her. He had a more pressing issue to deal with at the moment. Besides, he wasn't exactly sure how he was going to evade the BAU; it was just an idea. He'd have to look a lot of stuff up, but he thought maybe he could keep them distracted. It was risky, but the reward for that risk was worth it.

Right now, he needed to come up with a way to figure out who was taking these boys that so closely resembled Harrison. He started by presuming that the cases Harrison found were only the most recent ones, and that whoever this was might have operated elsewhere before this batch in California. He searched for similar cases that seemed to originate in other places in the country. Whoever it was, he certainly had a type, so that was the best place to start.


	8. Chapter 8 Thanksgiving

_Anaheim, California: November_

While taking down Halloween decorations and replacing them with Thanksgiving decorations in his shop, Oscar Coalworth was thinking quite obsessively about young Lucas; his mouth was watering at the thought. He and his mother – was her name Danielle? – had dropped in on Halloween, Lucas in a costume that was a very convincing version of Luke Skywalker from the original movie series. Mom was dressed up as Princess Leia.

It was that morning that Oscar had a thought; he'd been at the hunt for a very long time and in several different places. Of course he'd been very careful; but how was it that he'd been able to evade detection for so long? Was it his instincts? He liked to think so; he usually trusted them and had for periods of time held off from the hunt for years on end when his guts told him the wrong kinds of questions were being asked. At least twice he even went so far as to move to a different part of the country; first from Orlando to New York, and later on from the Big Apple to good old Orange County. Since he was living in completely different jurisdictions, he presumed that the reason no apparent connection to each location was ever made was because nobody has thought to look for them. The cases in Florida and New York would be long cold by now, and he paid attention to what was being said about his prey now.

Being so close to the border, it seemed police believed this was an abduction child slavery ring originating from Mexico; that meant the cops were not even close. There was a brief mention of the Feds getting in on the action- someone called Seaver –but they were on the same track as the local and State flatfeet.

"A bunch of Keystone Cops," Oscar muttered with a light chuckle.

So why was he starting to get anxious now? What were his predator instincts telling him? Maybe he should hold off on taking Lucas; maybe it was time to hold off the hunt, perhaps maybe even retire the hunt altogether. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something was amiss.

 _But Lucas...so delicious..._

He couldn't let go. That was all there was to it. He would tread carefully; even more careful than usual, but he'd go through with it. His instincts be damned, he had to have this one; this last one. That was the way. After Lucas, he would stop. Often when he stopped, he'd found he'd taken to drink; to the point of being problematic. That was okay; he'd also found that twelve steps helped with that problem. It wasn't the same as the hunt, but it would have to do. He'd had a good run, after all...

 _Washington, DC_

Other than a slightly rough start to their first conversation since Joey came to DC, things between them were actually going quite well. At first, Joey was clearly upset that Emily had given him a kind of cold shoulder. Emily tried to claim it wasn't intentional; she was just surprised. She also challenged him about what would possess him to uproot his entire life to come here for something that was likely to be difficult anyway- what with her constantly travelling. He replied that it was time to move on; away from Miami, away from Deb, away from all the BS. He thought she would be happy. He also had a challenge of his own: He suspected that the real reason she was avoiding him is because she profiled him wrong. She had him pegged as a hook-up dude not interested in commitment. This apparent loyalty and fidelity he was showing frightening her.

He wasn't wrong about that, but there was more; she was worried about her own ability to commit. She admitted she was scared to get too close; that has turned out badly for her too many times. To that, Joey said he could take it slow. He wanted things to work out.

So far they were.

They did have a personal life, although at present work had a way of coming into their time together. It was like a safe retreat; for both of them, Emily believed. Of course, when work did come in, it was almost always the Sterlingov case. Emily and her team were hitting red tape barriers at every turn with the Embassy; even when using back channels that Emily was able to exploit. She almost mentioned that on top of the quagmire on the case, it seemed that Reid and Garcia were preoccupied with something else entirely, and that they were both being dogged regularly by Barnes. The of course there was JJ; her attention was also divided with trying to find a way to get in on the missing boys in Anaheim. As it turned out, Joey already knew about that.

"So has Jennifer figured out a way in that missing kids thing in California?" He asked over a meal.

"How did you know about that?" Emily asked.

"Will mentioned it." Joey answered casually. "He talks about shit sometimes. So, has she? Or can you say?"

"I can, and no she hasn't."

"Too bad; it's sick that someone or some group of pervs can keep that kind of crap up."

"I agree." Emily said. "What about you? Have you made any progress?"

For a moment, Joey seemed lost; then he realized she was going back onto their case.

"Well, I started to make inroads with the Irish Mob. They're the principle rivals to the Ukrainians right now." He produced a faux badge. "You're looking at Joseph Quinn, the dirtiest Narcotics Agent in the Metro PD."

Emily Prentiss cringed. It wasn't the cover that bothered her; it was the Irish connection. She would not have thought that her experiences with Ian Doyle would still have such an effect on her. Joey didn't seem to notice.

"So anyways, I've heard some chatter about a freelancer. The problem is that I can't find anyone Irish who has a reason to take out Pavel."

That made sense to Prentiss. Organized crime was just that; organized. The last thing any of them would want is blood running through the streets. They might take out some petty thugs or small timers from time to time, but not a major player like Pavel Sterlingov; that kind of hit could easily lead to war and a war was bad for business. So unless there was a damn good reason to, a hit like that wasn't likely to happen; it was a matter of economics. This freelancer, however; that was a different matter altogether. This freelancer would be independent, and therefore open to take work from anyone for the right price. Whether from the Irish, or Ukrainians, or even someone from the Embassy, any client would be completely welcome, and any target fair game. It also meant that whoever it was that hired him was at least one step removed from the actual crime.

"This is good," she said, nodding. "It fits with the Embassy angle and the mob angle both. Now we know to identify and look for this freelancer."

Quinn grinned; clearly pleased with his work so far.

"Oh, yeah, I just remembered; I talked to Astor back in Miami awhile back. She was asking about that beanpole... sorry, I mean Agent Reid." He laughed. "I think she's a little bit sweet on him, if you can believe that."

Emily let out a bark of laughter in reply. "Actually, you'd be surprised." She said. "Reid has often drawn the interest of lots of young intellectual type women."

Joey shrugged her comment off. "I guess he rocks the whole 'sexy-smart' thing, then. He said. "He works with what he's got; good for him. So how's he doing?"

"Quite well, actually," Emily answered. "He does work on the lecture circuit." She didn't say anything about Reid's going to Miami to review the Lundy case on the Original Bay Harbor Butcher; she imagined that Joey knew about that if he talked to Astor recently. What was curious was that he didn't mention that.

 _Quantico_

Deputy Director Barnes' phone rang as soon as she got off a call from the Director. The new call was from Special agent Reid; presumably in regards to his investigation on Dexter Morgan and his involvement with the Bay Harbor Butcher. She eyed the file on her desk marked 'FAILSAFE' as she picked up the phone.

"Hello, Agent Reid," Barnes greeted, allowing herself to wonder for a fraction of a second if the agent would have the temerity to correct her by reminding her his official title is doctor.

"Deputy Director Barnes, hello," Reid greeted back, clearly opting not to correct his superior. "I'm only calling to give you a quick update on my investigation on Dexter Morgan."

"Very, good, Doctor," Barnes said. "Can we confirm our suspicions about the true nature of his activities?"

"If you mean in the empirical sense, then I have to say no, ma'am we cannot." The doctor replied. "You must understand that an UnSub like him is absolutely meticulous in his methods, especially in his effort to conceal his crimes; the chance of finding any hard evidence is virtually nonexistent."

"I see." The Deputy Director said dryly. "Then do we have enough circumstantial evidence yet to justify a manhunt?"

"To be honest I'm not completely sure." Reid answered. "We do have a video file containing part of a conversation between Harry Morgan- that was Dexter's adoptive father before he died of cancer; Harry, not Dexter, and Doctor Evelyn Voegel who was known as the Psychopath Whisperer before she was killed by Oliver Saxon..."

"You already told me about the video file, Doctor." Barnes interrupted. "Do you have anything new?"

"Yes, ma'am, I do." Garcia managed to piece a little more of the file together – actually it's a different segment of the same interview – where Harry refers briefly to Debra Morgan; that's his daughter and Dexter's adoptive sister, and mentions that she can never know. Unfortunately the clip ends before anything specific is mentioned, but given that we know that they talk about this Code of theirs we can presume the two topics are related."

Barnes was impressed. "That's excellent news, Doctor Reid." She said. "Well done; can this Debra Morgan be contacted?"

"Regrettably, no; she was shot while in the process of trying to arrest Oliver Saxon- she was a detective with the Homicide Division of Miami Metro Police - for the murder of Doctor Evelyn Voegel as well as the Brain Surgeon murders. Although she survived the initial shooting, there were complications following an operation which would have left her in a perpetual vegetative state if her body hadn't gone missing in the duration of Hurricane Laura."

 _Damn it_ , Barnes thought to herself. Not only is he careful, but he's lucky too. She was certain that the loss of his sister, his _adoptive_ sister, meant nothing to him; he is, after all, incapable of any real emotion. If there was a bright side, at least there was one person to eliminate as his probable accomplice.

"What about this elusive accomplice of his? You said you believed he had someone assisting him with covering his digital trail?" She asked.

"Garcia is working on that," Doctor Reid said. "It seems that whoever that is has skills and savvy that rivals hers, however."

Barnes let out a sigh. He's careful, lucky, _and_ has competent allies. If they could just catch him, he'd be the perfect candidate. "What about this Code you mentioned?" She asked. "Has Agent Lynch found anything at all?"

"If it's what I think it is, I don't think he will." Doctor Reid answered. "I'd been cogitating on that, and it only stands to reason that the Code would most likely be some kind of code of ethics to live by in order to exist as a serial killer and function in normal society to avoid detection. If I'm right, then the Code would be ingrained into his memory to the point that it is just part of his nature to live by it; like an instinctive reflex. He wouldn't know any other way to live. After awhile, any new life styles or changes in life would simply be incorporated into the core means of living."

"Do you mean like a conditioned response?"

"Basically, yes."

Thank you, Doctor Reid." Barnes said, and hung up, neither knowing nor particularly caring if there was more to his report. Based on the profile that Reid had worked up and the scraps of circumstance that have been put together, the Deputy Director was quite sure this was the right man for the job. She was also interested in finding out who his accomplice was; they evidently made a very good team.

 _San Diego, California_

Dexter found at least part of what he was looking for. He began to search for similar crimes to the missing boys that looked like Harrison which had been taking place in or around Anaheim, apparently focused on Disneyland. Though what he found was nowhere near as close together in terms of time, he did find similar cases; in Orlando, and then New York.

Some forty years ago, a series of young boys went missing in Orlando, Florida either in or near Disney World. Initially, given the similarities in the description of the boys, police originally thought it was in some way connected to child slavery. Once a sex connection was made and put forward in the news, the crimes stopped abruptly after had been going on over the course of several years.

Another pattern began in similar fashion twenty years ago in New York, in or around Coney Island, and carried on at an almost undetectable rate for well over a decade. No connection was made with Orlando –until now.

 _Then again, they probably didn't look for one. Why would they?_

It didn't make much sense that this would be a trade ring; that market changes. This is one specific type that is targeted. It had to be the same guy.

 _Who is this fuckin' creep?_ Deb asked. _For fuck sake, Dex; he's been at it for almost half a fuckin' century. Look at all those kids! Even_ I _want to see you get this guy._

"Thank you, Debs, for your vote of confidence on this one." Dexter replied vaguely. "It means a lot to me." Then it struck him as a little odd how truthful he was being. "The problem is, how do I find him? What's the common thread that links all these crimes?"

 _Washington, DC_

SSA Jennifer 'JJ' Jareau felt bad that she was pleased with what she found. Not even really looking at the Sterlingov case, she was currently looking for a reason to insert the BAU into the missing boys of Anaheim that Ashley had brought to their attention. Yes, the case involved kids from all over the country, but they all went missing in California, so it was arguably a state case at most. The thing was, California was not the only place this particular pattern turned up. There was at least two other places something like this took place; Florida, and later New York. The big difference now was the rate of abductions. That indicated a sharp escalation of activity and, considering how long the apparent pattern has been taking place, a rapid devolution in behavior.

It felt awful that something like this could be going on undetected for so long, but there was a sense of accomplishment in finding a way in to do something about it. The fact that she felt good about this for any reason was what put her off, even if this particular UnSub, probably a preferential child sex offender, seemed to like his boys when they looked a little bit like Henry, her eldest son. It was even worse that Henry was in his favored age group. If she was honest with herself that was the main reason she wanted to be a part of capturing this son of a bitch.

Smiling grimly, she forwarded what she found to Seaver in California, suggesting that they were likely looking for a single offender, and then sent a request to Barnes for the team to go to Anaheim in order to work up a proper Profile.

 _Disneyland –Thanksgiving Day_

Having had celebrated the holiday with his extended family the previous day and having had put on the show that was expected of him to be the sweet-hearted elderly uncle, Oscar Coalworth was free this day to pursue what may very well be his final hunt. Early that morning, he set up his trolley – more of a kiosk, really – and all that was left was to wait for Lucas and dear old mom to stroll by. Everything else was ready to go.

Meanwhile, Oscar Coalworth, founder and owner of Oscar's Meats greeted guests warmly and sold his wares; most specifically his special home-made recipe style of Jerky. Lately he had been experiencing a slight downturn in business due to this Veganism fad going around, but today was having a very promising start; only two hours into his time slot and he was turning a very good profit.

 _Washington, DC – Thanksgiving Day_

Normally, David Rossi wouldn't want to have a lot of guests over for the holiday, but his newly renewed wife insisted, and he wasn't about to deny her anything. Besides, it was probably a good thing for the team to enjoy some together outside of the stresses and strains of the job. Who knows? Maybe they'd even get lucky and not get interrupted by a call to duty.

"And maybe we'll discover that the tooth-fairy is real." Rossi thought, both glumly and cheerfully at the same time.

He supposed the dinner idea wasn't a bad one, though; it did give him a chance to show off his culinary skills. In any case, he and his wife had just finished up setting the table and getting the appetizers out when the guests started to arrive. Simmons and his wife showed up first, followed by Lewis, then Alvez. Reid, Garcia, and Lynch showed up separate but at around the same time, and seemed to be monopolizing their own time; most likely talking their geek stuff that Dave had little or no understanding of. Then JJ and Will arrived, their two boys in tow; both of them scrambling to see Reid. Reid was quick to regale them with a magic trick. Finally Emily Prentiss showed up, and with a guest of her own; Sergeant Detective Joseph Quinn of the DC Metro Homicide Division.

Quinn, who had never seen the Rossi house before, was clearly blown away at what he saw as he took it all in.

"Wow," he said. "I had no idea the Feds got paid so well!"

"We don't," Rossi answered back. "Most of this is from my writing. Here," he continued, leading Quinn aside. "Let me give you the five hundred dollar tour."

 _Disneyland_

Against her better judgement, Danielle Woolsmith allowed Lucas to go off by himself inside Disneyland; she had seen the missing posters all over the place, and felt a stone in her stomach at the thought of it. However, she didn't want to be a helicopter mom, so she let him go off to the video game arcade; at least she knew where he was, and the park had to be pretty secure anyway. Before letting him go, she arranged with him a meeting place and a time to be there. Besides, she could use a little time to herself as well.

She used the time to grab a bite and a drink; just one couldn't hurt. Then it came time to go meet up with her son. She arrived about five minutes early, and made a point of watching from just outside the exit of the arcade.

Five minutes passed by, then ten, then fifteen. Lucas had not come out yet. At first she wasn't too worried about it; he probably just lost track of time. She went into the arcade to find him. The arcade was crowded with kids, most of them boys lost in the din of loud music, sound effects and their shouts and curses. The environment was annoying, maybe even mildly offensive, but not particularly troubling. She knew that kids will act like that in this kind of environment and saw it as no special threat.

But she could not see Lucas anywhere. Now she was growing concerned; did she miss him? She made another search. There was still no sign of her son anywhere. Concern became worry, and worry quickly became panic. Her son was missing. In her mind, she saw the boys in the posters; the ones that already looked like her son on some level or another. Then she saw, in her mind's eye, the name _Lucas Woolsmith_ under an image of her son.

 _San Diego, California_

Thanksgiving dinner in the 'Castle' house was a quiet one; with just the three denizens of the house attending. Though none of them were watching, Harrison insisted on having the football game on; to him it seemed like what 'normal' families would do, and if it was on, he could honestly say to his classmates that he watched the game, and might even be able to talk about it if called upon to do so. As it went towards his cover, Dexter welcomed the idea.

"So how's work been?" Hannah asked casually. "Your job, I mean, not so much your work." She added hastily.

"It's been great." Dexter replied. "You know, I had no idea so many people were so unhappy with the Postal service. I'm even looking at setting up a branch office in another state."

"Holy..." Harrison started, stemming himself from swearing. "That was fast! Where would that be?"

"Well, I'm considering the Mid-West. There's been a fair bit of demand out there, especially in Wisconsin." Dexter answered.

"Who would run this branch office?" Hannah asked, ever the pragmatist. "I imagine it would have to be someone you know you can trust."

Dexter eyed Hannah lovingly. She never ceased to amaze him; she always seemed to be right on top of everything. The truth was he actually did have someone in mind; the very first person who expressed a demand, in fact. When he saw her name, he had to check and see if it was who he thought it was. Running that check was simple enough; and it was exactly who he thought it was. The only reason he held back from replying right away was that he wasn't completely sure how she would react to learning who Frank Castle was.

Would Lumen Anne Pierce be ready to accept that Dexter Morgan was alive? How would she respond to that? As far as Dexter could reason out, there was just one way to find out for sure.

 _Hold on just one motherfuck of a second. Are you thinking about number fuckin' 13? Is that who you're thinking of bringing into this clusterfuck?_ Deb asked.

"Yeah, actually, I do." Dexter answered, more to Hannah than to Deb. "An old friend; Harrison, you met her, though I doubt you'd remember. You were very young. Do you remember Lumen? She was around a little while before I met Hannah."

Harrison scrunched his nose in concentration, and finally shrugged. "Kind of, I think. Was she the girl that got hurt and you helped?"

"That's her!" Dexter nodded.

"Does she know who you are?" Hannah asked.

"That depends on what you mean by that." Dexter replied. "I don't see how she could know about Frank Castle, but if you mean if she knows about the Dark Passenger, then yes, she does. In fact she welcomed him every bit as well as you have, so I know I can trust her with just about anything."

Hannah was about to say something else, but stopped herself.

 _Well, holy shitbox!_ Deb quipped. _You were bumping the uglies with her back then weren't you? She figured out what you were, and that got that twisted little sister all hot! I thought I was fucked up. I ain't got nothin' on that shit._

Before Dexter could say anything else, the television made a jarring screaming noise, followed by announcement declaring an incoming Amber Alert.

 _Saved by the Bell..._ Dexter thought to himself as Harrison immediately jumped from the table to go watch the screen. Hannah and Dexter followed him into the front room where the television was waiting for them. Although he was sure Hannah would be ultimately fine with the idea that he had had relationships before her; he was even married with children before he even met her. What did concern him, though, was would she accept the idea that he was considering having one of his former relationships run a branch office for his business? Would she trust him that he had no inkling towards Lumen Pierce anymore?

 _But is that true, dear brother?_ Deb challenged. In his mind he told her to shut the fuck up.

 _Those are concerns you need to address, Dexter,_ Harry inserted himself into the internal dialogue. _But first you need to pay attention to something a little more immediate._ He pointed at the screen _._

Dexter looked at the screen and suddenly the world went silent. He got tunnel vision as he saw the subject of the Amber Alert on the screen was, at least for a fraction of a second, his own son, if only slightly more built. The idea that the camera adds ten pounds played in his mind for a moment as he heard Hannah, Harry, and Deb all say together: _Do what you have to do._

In its almost own silent, wordless gibberish manner, the Dark Passenger muttered its agreement. One look in Harrison's eyes and he knew his son's Shady Co-host was rumbling too; he'd seen that look too many times in the mirror to miss it.

Without a word, Frank Castle ceased to exist; even the pretense of an identity vanished. Dexter Morgan relinquished the wheel of his internal vehicle and let the Dark Passenger take over as he strode to his office. He was only vaguely aware that Harrison followed- or perhaps the Shady Co-host had taken center stage; it didn't matter. It may have been good for him to see some of the researching process. They had to find the common link between Orlando, New York, and Anaheim.

 _Washington, DC_

Dinner finished, the team retired to the front room for drinks. Quinn had to admit, Rossi knew how to live large like he was in charge. The place was amazing; and the food he just had the pleasure of scarfing down was probably the best meal he had ever had in his entire life. On top of that, the man had impeccable taste when it came to liquor.

On a more practical note, he was closing in on who the so-called freelancer was through his connections in the underworld. Even though he promised to refrain from shop talk during dinner, that didn't mean he couldn't think about that shit. The way he figured it, he could play this just right and make it seem like the Feds and the Metro cops were making a much bigger deal about Pavel's murder than they were, and then convince his connections that it might be a good idea to throw their free agent under the bus in order to make the pressure die down. This way, he figured, he was doing his job and keeping his cover; basically by doing his other job. Everyone wins.

That just left one thing; find out just how close the beanpole and his two geek pals were to Dex. Quinn had no doubt that Astor wouldn't say anything- not deliberately. What he did have doubts about was whether or not these BAU guys might have hoodwinked her into telling them something they didn't need to know.

"Hey, Doc," Quinn called to Reid. "Astor tells me you and Lynch there took a little trip down to Miami a while back."

"Oh, is that right?" Reid asked.

"Yeah," Quinn replied, adding a guffaw for good measure. "Y'know, the way she went on about you, I'd say she's got a little crush on you."

The beanpole got a puzzled look on his face, which was what Quinn was hoping for; he now had the doctor off balance. There was a good chance he might be able to pry what he's got on Dexter. He was about to make his next move...

...when everyone's phone buzzed to announce an incoming Amber Alert.

Like a scene right out of some cheesy television show – maybe even that Criminal Behavior show with that cute blonde in it – everyone simultaneously looked down at their phones. Will's kid – Quinn was pretty sure his name was Henry – peered over JJ's shoulder to see what was going on.

"Mama, that boy looks like me!" the kid said.

JJ put on the best smile she could manage. "Are you kidding?" she asked almost playfully. "He's nowhere near as handsome you!"

Henry giggled as Quinn looked closer at the image on his phone. The boy on his screen actually did look a bit like the kid in the room. Of course, the alert was for California, which was on the other side of the country. Lucas Woolsmith had gone missing from Disneyland, and matches the description of a number of boys from across the country that have gone missing in Orange County.

"You know what, little man?" Will said to Henry, "why don't you take your brother over to the next room and play for a bit, huh?"

"Yes, Papa," Henry replied and took his little brother away. Once they were clear, JJ nearly broke down completely. The din of conversation was a whirlwind that Quinn felt he was better off staying out of; he was obviously the new guy here, and probably had no idea how big a deal this was to all of them. One thing he did pick up on; this grouping was about as close to family as anyone could get without being related.

What he did gather was that this was about a case that some other agent called Seaver was involved with, and that JJ was trying to work it so that they, the team, could get in on it too, but someone named Barnes (most likely Em's boss) was basically cock blocking them for some bullshit non-reason. Apparently JJ was pretty damn sure this wasn't a pedo-ring, but a single offender who had been working at this for a long time.

 _Anaheim, California_

With Lucas safely incapacitated in the back of his van, Oscar Coalworth backed into the loading bay in the back alley of his shop. Overall, the entire operation went as well as he could have ever hoped. He found the boy in the video arcade (always a good place to look for young boys who wanted some time away from their parents) and told him that there was some kind of accident. He told Lucas that his mother asked him to come bring him to her. Without so much as a question, dear Lucas dropped the game he was playing – some kind of first person shooter game; they were all the same, really, so Oscar had no idea what it was actually called- and followed him out. Oscar led him to where he had parked, and as soon as they were out of sight he covered the boy's mouth with a cloth soaked in chloroform, rendering Lucas unconscious. From there it was a simple matter of getting to the shop. There was, of course, the Amber Alert on the radio just as he got in, but that was par for the course. It had been like that for quite some time, and nobody ever got close; or if they did, Oscar was able to vacate and hold back from his hunt for awhile until the whole matter was forgotten about.

This hunt went remarkably smoother than he thought it would. Oscar felt he might have time to play, after all. Still, there was that gnawing sense that something was amiss. It might not be time to move on, but this may very well be his last hunt. It was good that it went as well as it did.


	9. Chapter 9 Instinct and Intuition

_Quantico_

It was just after the BAU briefing on the Anaheim case which JJ managed to prove fell under Federal jurisdiction that Unit Chief Emily Prentiss got a call. She was pressed for time, but since the call display read that it was Danko Sterlingov the Ukraine Ambassador, she took the call.

"This is Special Supervisory Agent Emily Prentiss." She greeted.

"Agent Prentiss, Please hold for the Ambassador." A secretary requested. Prentiss waited a moment.

"Agent Prentiss," Sterlingov greeted in perfect English despite his heavy accent. "I just wanted to call and thank you and your agents for all your assistance. We have located the man behind the murder of my brother and placed him in custody."

"That's very good news, Ambassador," Prentiss replied. "I was just about to call you. Do you mind if I ask who it was?"

"Not at all," Sterlingov answered. "His name is Dmitri Khanski; one of my own security officers. You or your people may have met him. It seems he was certain he was doing me a favor by removing an embarrassment to my name, and went to length to keep me out of it for deniability."

"I see." Prentiss said.

"Of course, you realize that since we captured Khanski in the Embassy, he is ours to deal with according to our laws." Sterlingov said.

"Yes, of course." Prentiss agreed. "I'm glad we could be of assistance. We also suspect he most likely hired someone local to do the job. By any chance did your men find anything to narrow the search?"

"It's funny you should ask." Sterlingov answered. "In his quarters we found a single playing card –the Jack of Spades- with a phone number on it. If this is someone who is a problem for your country I will arrange to have it sent to the proper authorities."

Emily said that would be perfect and advised he send it to DC Metro Homicide; either Lieutenant LaMontagne or Detective Sergeant Joseph Quinn. The Ambassador said he would do that and ended the call. Prentiss promptly called Joey and gave him the update, indicating it was possible that the number on the playing card may lead him to the actual hitter.

"That would fit." Quinn confirmed. The name of the freelancer some of the gangsters have dropped is blackjack. That could be his weak idea of a calling card." He paused for a moment, and then added, "Are you coming with me on this one? Maybe after we could..."

"I'd like that, Joey, but I can't." Emily cut him short. "I have wheels going up to California in fifteen minutes. It's a bad one; involves children so I have to go."

"I get it." Quinn said. "You go on catch your kiddie messing scumbag." He sounded disappointed, but not resentful. Maybe this could work out after all; being a cop, Joey might understand the pressures of the job better than most. "Hey, when you do catch him, give him one in the nuts for me, alright?" He finished off with a hint of good cheer.

Prentiss coughed a laugh. "I had no idea you had such high principles!"

"I don't." Joey retorted. "It'll be because that asshole ruined my date plans."

Despite herself, Emily had to chuckle a little bit at that; it sounded a little bit more like the Joe Quinn she had originally profiled. She told she'd do that and said good bye. Her calls complete, she grabbed her go bag and headed for the jet.

 _San Diego, California_

It was the wee hours in the morning. Both Hannah and Harrison had gone to bed, and Dexter was still up in his office, looking for something, anything that would connect the missing boys from Orlando, Coney Island, and Anaheim. The pattern was there, but nothing seemed to connect them in any way to any person or even group.

"There's nothing there!" Dexter growled in frustration. Clenching his jaw, he buried his face in his palms and rubbed his temples with his thumbs.

 _Maybe you should put it aside for now, son._ Harry suggested. _Get some sleep. Look again later with a fresh set of eyes._

"I can't do that." Dexter insisted. "Someone out there is targeting young boys and doing god knows what to them. I have to find him and put a stop to him."The Dark Passenger was snarling in agreement, to the point of actually presenting itself in his voice.

 _You've been awake over twenty four hours, Dex._ Harry countered in gentle yet firm tones. _When you get tired, it's too easy to make mistakes; mistakes you can't afford to make, especially with a case like this one. Remember what happened shortly after Harrison was born._

For once, Dexter listened. Harry was right; as usual. He logged off, shut down, and made his way to bed. He would make the next day an off day for Castle Couriers, and once he was rested up, he would resume his search.

When he got to bed, he found Hannah still sat on the edge of the bed and she promptly sat up and began massaging his shoulders.

"I know I said to do what you have to do, Dexter," she said gently, "but if you're going to do it well, you need to relax."

"I know," Dexter groaned.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She offered.

Dexter didn't believe she could help much on this, but then again she couldn't hurt anything, either. On the other hand, maybe she was just trying to be a wife; to hear about his day and his concerns. She probably didn't have any answers for him, but then maybe he didn't need her to have one. He had to admit, it was nice to have someone he could talk to openly about this part of his life; of himself.

"It's the missing kids." He said. "I have three sets of kids of the right description going missing across the country, over the course of decades, but other than the fact they all take place in or near major amusement parks I can't find anything that links them."

"That sounds frustrating." Hannah said.

"It's maddening. Whoever this guy is he's either very careful about covering his tracks or he's very lucky." Dexter replied.

"Maybe you should stop looking." Hannah suggested.

Dexter pulled away to turn his body to face her, a puzzled expression on his face. Though he technically had no feelings, Hannah always had a way striking exactly the right chord to generate what certainly felt like real feelings. He was genuinely puzzled; or at least this was how he always imagined what being puzzled would feel like.

"What I mean is, "she said to clarify, "is that whenever I lose track of something and try to find it, what I'll often do is stop looking for it. I'll close my eyes for a few seconds, and then I will open them and actively not look for what I'd lost. Inevitably whatever it was I was looking for will be almost literally right in front my face."

Dexter shook his head no, plopped down on his back on the bed, and ran his fingers through his hair. "It's not like trying to find the meat tenderizer or the filet knife in the cutlery drawer. It's much more complicated than that."He said, yawning.

"Well, maybe it is or maybe not." Hannah retorted, placing her head n his chest so she was facing him. "In any case, one thing that is true is that many times the solution to any given challenge comes to you when you're not thinking about it." She grinned at him in a dirty kind of way.

"Oh, really?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Did you have anything in mind to distract me?"

Hannah giggled as her right hand crept slowly over his thigh. "I'm so glad you asked..." She said.

 _Washington, DC_

Em, JJ, and the rest of their team were in the air by the time Sgt. Detective Joseph Quinn was on the road and on his way to the office for briefing. En route, his phone rang.

"This is Quinn; thrill me." He answered.

"Quinn, this is Will." LaMontagne said. "I think we got a break on Ukrainian mobster case."

"No kidding?" Quinn asked, trying to sound surprised. He knew what the lead was, but Will sounded so excited and Quinn didn't want to burst his bubble. Besides, it just seemed like the better way to go. "Tell me more."

"First thing, that Ambassador said his people caught a guy in his security detail that set Sterlingov up." Will answered. "He says the security man thought he was doing the Ambassador a favor by arranging the removal of his embarrassing brother. Next thing, he tells me that on inspecting Dmitri Khanski's quarters he found a playing card, that card has contact information it; like some kind of calling card."

"Did you say they found a playing card?" Quinn asked, playing along. "Did he say what card?"

"Actually, yeah, he did. It's the Jack of Spades." Will answered. "Why? Does that mean something to you?"

"It fits with some freelancer some of the boys talk about." Quinn replied. "I didn't get a name, but they call him the Blackjack. I think this might be our guy, Will. I need that card so I reach out to him; maybe set him up."

"Alright; come on in to the office and I'll get it to you as soon as it gets delivered." Will said.

 _San Diego, California_

Dexter's eyes shot open; it was just a little bit before dawn. It was thoughts about the missing children that woke him. He didn't dream, so it wasn't a dream. For some reason his brain kept going back to what he said to Hannah earlier; he told her that looking for a connection to find a killer isn't like looking for a meat tenderizer or fillet knife in the cutlery drawer. Why was that stuck in there? What did that have to do with finding whoever is taking these boys that look like Harrison?

 _I gotta hand it to you, Dex,_ Deb snickered. _Even after a grand fucking like Hannah gave you, you stay on task. Either you're really devoted, or she's a shitty lay._

"I'll thank you for that." Dexter replied. "It has nothing to do with Hannah's abilities."

 _Focus, Dexter._ Harry chimed in like a coach. _What is it about your comment to Hannah that resonates?_

"I don't know." Dexter hissed. Then something occurred to him; both items he used as example had to do with meat. "There's been a meat market near every location." He jumped out of bed and strode into his office to boot up his computer. He looked over his research and found what he was looking for.

"There it is." He said. "In Orlando, Coalworth Meats; in New York, O.C. Meats; and now in Anaheim we have Oscar's Meats." He keyed his keyboard, and grinned. All three markets were owned by the same man; Oscar Coalworth. "I got you, you sick sonofabitch."

 _Careful, son; you need to make absolutely sure you've got the right guy._ Harry admonished.

"Yes, dad, I know and remember the Code. At least now I have a place to start looking." Dexter reassured. He made a mental note of the address of Oscar's Meats in Anaheim, California. Very soon, Mr. Oscar Coalworth would be put under very close scrutiny.

 _Anaheim, California_

It has been said that meat tastes best when the kill is made at sunrise. To Oscar's extensive experience, this was an undeniable truth. Shortly after getting Lucas into his killing room in the cellar of his shop, he felt that sensation almost non-stop; like he was being observed. Of course he looked into the news, and of course Lucas was on it; with an Amber Alert. That was par for the course. The FBI was in on looking for the boys he had taken, led by an agent called Seaver. She was nowhere near him yet; she was still looking for a group most likely connected to Mexico. So what was causing this feeling?

It didn't matter. The point was that he wasn't prepared to take any chances. He was always careful. That meant that he would not have time to play with his food before his last meal. Instead, he went back to the shop and down into the cellar.

"Please, Oscar, tell me what's going on?" Lucas pleaded. "Why are you keeping me here? Are you mad at my mom?"

Oscar smiled. "No, I'm not mad at your mom." He replied gently as he casually clutched the bolt gun. The Sun would be rising very soon. It was almost the perfect time. "You'll only be here a little while longer." He sauntered to where he had Lucas Woolsmith hogtied on the chopping table. Bolt gun in one hand, he casually glanced at his wristwatch on the other.

"Then, you are going to let me go?"

Looking up from his watch, Oscar smiled. "In a manner of speaking, dear boy," he said. His watch was synced to beep at the exact time of sunrise. His watch beeped, and Oscar placed the bolt gun squarely between the boy's eyes and triggered it. The bolt shot quick and clean into Lucas's skull, killing him instantly. Not as satisfying as the old hammer, but Oscar was getting on in years and didn't quite have the strength to raise and swing it efficiently.

Now it was time to prepare the meat. That feeling of being observed was great enough to make it seem urgent. Over the years, Oscar Coalworth had gotten pretty efficient at this part.

 _On the Jet_

Senior Supervisory Agent David Rossi looked up from the files at the rest of the team, slightly frustrated at having to go to California yet again. Still, there was no denying that they were needed there; and JJ did work some impressive magic to get them in on this case. He had to give props where props were due.

The main screen on the jet was split; Garcia on one side and Seaver on the other. Seaver was the point person on the ground; she'd been investigating the rash of missing boys in Anaheim for quite some time now. Up until this last boy, Lucas Woolsmith, the running theory had been this was about some kind of sex trade thing coming out of Mexico, or perhaps a group dispersed throughout the country. The fact that the boys all looked so similar certainly added weight to that idea.

"You know what?" He began. "I'm not so sure we'd be too far off thinking this is a pedophile thing. The pattern with the boys is definitely showing a preferred type; this guy clearly has a certain taste."

"He likes young, healthy boys with blonde hair." JJ agreed, clearly more than a little disturbed at how well that description matched her eldest son Henri.

"That was where the possibility of a trade or group came up." Seaver said. "That matches a very popular type in Mexico. Blonde is a rare commodity down there; in high demand, you could say."

"Types in the sex trade market, especially when it comes to children often tend to go in cycles." Reid added. "Of course, young, healthy, blonde hair and blue eyes is consistently high in the market; you kind of can't miss if that's what you got to sell."

Garcia winced. "Thank you for the insight, big brain." She chimed in.

"One thing we can agree on is that this guy is almost certainly a preferential offender." Lewis said. "Normally preferential offenders are more opportunistic than this organized."

"He's set himself up in or near a target rich environment. That affords a lot of opportunities for a guy like this creep." Rossi replied. "Amusement parks attract families; families mean there are lots of kids around."

"He probably sees an opportunity almost daily." Alvez said.

"What gets me," Simmons commented, "is why on holidays? Is there some kind of trauma in his past? Or is it just some sick game of his?"

"Maybe a little bit of both." Rossi answered.

Reid rattled off a bunch of numbers and statistics that Rossi wouldn't remember. The gist of what he was getting at was that holidays were when people go to places like Disney of in the case of New York Coney Island. It would the highest volume and therefore probably the easiest time for him to go about his business without being noticed.

"It's still pretty bold." Emily said.

"It's quite likely that he works in an occupation that puts him close to children." Alvez said. "We might want to look at teachers and school employees, that sort of thing. He may even be an employee in the park itself."

"What about shop keepers near the park?" JJ suggested. "I mean shops that cater to kids."

"Garcia..." Prentiss started.

"Way ahead of you boss," Garcia interjected. "I'm cross referencing all three locations to find names that appear in the areas at the corresponding times, and looking for residents in their late sixties to early seventies that have lived in all three cities with traumatic experiences around the holidays."

"You may want to check neighboring suburbs as well, Garcia." JJ recommended. She was clearly going into a high vigilance mode. Rossi glanced at Prentiss; wondering if Emily might place JJ in a place where she was less directly involved in the investigation. It might be a good idea to keep her with Seaver on this one. Prentiss's eyes darted at him for a fraction of a second; she was most likely thinking the same thing. Not that there was a whole lot to work with at present anyway.

"Will do," Garcia concurred. "I'll be back in a flash and dropping names; Garcia out for now." She tapped at something on her keyboard and disappeared, giving Seaver the full screen. Then Prentiss laid out who was going where and doing what; as Rossi figured, JJ was put with Seaver.

 _Washington, DC_

Quinn exited Will's office with the okay to go ahead and begin to set up 'Blackjack' through his connections with the gangs. His cover as a cop on the take was solid; he was the new kid on the block, and it was easy to make it look good when the crooks went to check on him and his record back in Miami. Lots of the gangs back there would vouch for him.

His idea was to make it sound like Metro Homicide and the Feds where crawling all over the Sterlingov case; that they were talking about it maybe becoming an international incident leading to a massive crackdown on all the gangs, not just whoever actually hired Blackjack. He was going to also tell them they found evidence that is was indeed Blackjack that killed Sterlingov. The fact that Sterlingov happened to be the brother of the Ukraine Ambassador made the narrative plausible. The point here was to convince the gangs that Blackjack was a liability; if they threw him under the bus they might actually be able to calm the Feds and the Ukraine Embassy down.

His phone rang. It was Astor.

"Hey, Astor, what's up?" He asked with good cheer.

"How well do you know Kevin Lynch?" She asked, straight to the point.

"The tech analyst at the Bureau?" he asked, almost rhetorically. The truth was he didn't know much of anything about the guy; he knew Lynch sometimes helped the BAU with cases, and maybe he had some kind of relationship with the BAU techie Garcia.

"That's the one."

"Not much, to be honest." Quinn said honestly.

"I'm texting you his contact information." Astor announced. "I recommend you get to know the guy and find out just how much he knows about Dexter. In fact there's a good chance he'll be asking you some questions anyway."

Quinn was quick to piece together what she was talking about. This guy Lynch was getting close to figuring out Dexter's dark little secret. Quinn would have to run interference.

"What do you know about him?" He asked her.

"He's a long time technical analyst with the FBI. He's been known to help the Behavioral Analysis Unit from time to time, and he was once in a relationship with Analyst Penelope Garcia of the BAU. He's an even bigger geek than I am; you name the geekdom, and he's probably a card carrying member. He's crazy good with computers." She paused, and then resumed. "It's okay, Uncle Joey, I am a geek and I know it. But anyway, He was also here in Miami with SSA Dr. Spencer Reid 'reviewing' the original Butcher case."

"Is this a BAU case?" Joe asked.

"As far as I can tell, no," Astor replied. "It looks like it started with Dr. Reid right after the Copycat Butcher; apparently he didn't like something about his interview with dad... I mean Dexter. Then the Deputy Director Susan Barnes caught wind of his work – maybe some time after Reid enlisted help from Garcia who got help from Lynch. Now they report to Barnes directly."

"So this is some kind of pet project of the Deputy Director. What stake does this Barnes have in this?" Joe asked. "Actually, what do we know about her?"

"She's almost like the LaGuerta of the FBI." Astor said. "She's all about the politics and likes to be the public face of the Bureau." It made a little bit of sense that Astor would know about that of LaGuerta; she probably heard a lot about the former Captain back when Dexter was around. "As for her stake in this, I don't know."

"Okay, thanks Astor." Quinn said. "I'll keep this guy Lynch in mind." He disconnected the call. Odds were good that Lynch might come to him, so it was good to have a heads up. It might also be a good idea to 'run into' Mr. Lynch at some sci-fi fair or some shit like that. Then he could talk up Deb as the cleanest cop he ever knew, and by association her brother. He could even talk about how he and Dex didn't get along at first, and admit how he, Quinn, tried to find dirt on Dex but he came up squeaky clean.

In the meantime, he had a hitman to set up.

 _Anaheim, California_

Dexter sat in his van which he had parked in strip mall parking lot directly across from Oscar Coalworth's butcher shop. As he watched Oscar carry on with his business, he conducted a little of his own. As Frank Castle, he set up a meeting with Lumen Anne Pierce in Racine, Wisconsin to talk about setting up a franchise for Castle Couriers.

Meanwhile, Oscar was all smiles and warm greetings to all his customers. One thing that Dexter did note was how eager he was to offer up his home made jerky. Maybe he was trying to establish a brand; set up some kind of a retirement fund. He was, after all, getting a little long in the tooth. It was coming up to noon, and Oscar hit a lull in business. Seizing the opportunity, Oscar locked up his doors, placed a closed sign in the door, and lowered a blind.

"Time for lunch," Dexter said to himself. "Or are you taking a few minutes to clean up, Oscar Coalworth?"

Before staking the place out, Dexter had an opportunity to case the place. There was a back entrance for loading purposes in the alley. From a window beside the loading door, Dexter could see a set of stairs going down. He couldn't see what was down there, but he was willing to hazard to guess that it was his work shop. This wasn't purely speculation, either; he was guessing that because it would be what he would do. Just how easy would be for a butcher to dispose of a body?

 _The sick son of a bitch could be serving him to his customers._ Deb commented.

"There is precedent for that." Dexter agreed. He was thinking of Fritz Harman.

 _Just remember_ , Harry interjected. _Before you act, you have to be sure_.

"I remember." Dexter said. "But right now, I have a delivery to make." He really did, too. He had a package to deliver to a musician a few blocks from here. Now was as good a time to make that delivery; maybe Oscar would come back and see the van is gone and therefore not grow suspicious.

Downstairs, Oscar checked on the soup stock he was making from the bones of Lucas Woolsmith. He was pleased with the results so far; the scraps of meat were practically melting off the bones, and the marrow was progressing nicely. By the end of the day, it should be ready, and then he could dispose of the bones.

Now he had to check on something else. For a good chunk of the morning there was a blue van parked in the parking lot across the street. The driver, a man apparently in his forties wearing his ball cap backwards like an idiot, got out and fetched a Starbucks Coffee, and then just sat in his van, diddling around on a Tablet. The van was marked as belonging to a business called Castle Couriers; sounded to Oscar like a fake. It could be a cop trying to stake him out.

He went back upstairs and peered out the glass door from behind the blind. The van was gone. That was encouraging, but not necessarily good enough. He then went to his little office behind the counter and booted up Google to look up Castle Couriers.

He got a hit right away. It was a real business. It was new, but legit. It also apparently got quite popular quite fast; not much of a surprise, given how lacking Post has been of late. Founded just this year in San Diego by Frank Castle, it seemed he was one man show, so far. He was looking to recruit and even expand; there was even a demand for it. It seemed a little too good to be true, but maybe this Frank fellow got lucky or struck the right market at the right time. One of the reviews from Jennifer Fisher of Fisher Flowers, also in San Diego, was absolutely glowing.

"I wonder if they're fucking." Oscar muttered. "They probably are."

That didn't matter. What mattered was that Castle Couriers was legitimate. The idiot in the cap was almost certainly Frank Castle, and was most likely waiting out a delivery time. Feeling a little better, Oscar put his computer to sleep and set off to reopen.

The team arrived at the Orange County and met with Seaver. In Emily's estimation, the evidence that was collected really only confirmed what they had profiled on the way there; they were in fact looking for a single UnSub. He was most likely a white male in his late fifties or sixties. He most likely ran his own business, possibly as an independent contractor, but more one that somehow appeals to his preferred target of boys aged twelve to fourteen. He certainly had a liking for target rich environments, which made for plenty of opportunities; that struck Prentiss as very convenient for an opportunist like this- even one as clearly organized and careful as this one.

In any event, she had asked Garcia to look for a common thread in local business in all three suspected areas of this creep's operations. In the meantime, she was going to go with Lewis to re-interview the families of the victims who lived in Anaheim, as was Rossi. Alvez was going to review the cases from Orlando, and Simmons the same for New York. While JJ contacted families from other parts of the country, Reid worked up a geographical profile of where the victims were last seen, and Seaver oversaw the whole California part of the case.

"I'm not actually sure if a geographical profile will be much help," Reid commented, "since most of the boys were at Disneyland when they were abducted. Although I suppose I could run profiles from Coney Island and Disneyworld as well and see if there's a similar pattern of divergence in all three..."

"If you think it will help that'll be great." Prentiss said.

Later that night, Dexter returned to his stakeout point to watch the activities of Oscar Coalworth; but this time he took the car instead of the van. He also made a point of watching from the Starbucks instead of the car; it occurred to him that if this guy has been at it as long as he has, he'd have to be very careful and aware of the details of his surroundings. Tonight, he was planning on taking a look at what Mr. Coalworth has down in the basement. If Dexter was right, the basement would be his workroom. Given that Oscar was a butcher, his workspace would be clean, but there was a chance he'd miss a spot. Now it was just a matter of waiting for him to pack up and leave for the night.

The lights in the Butcher shop across the street went out. It looked like Oscar Coalworth was about to exit stage left, as it were. Dexter finished up his coffee and made quick work of finalizing a time to meet with Lumen in Wisconsin, keeping an eye on the front exit as Oscar, carrying a burlap sack, locked up the exit, closed a gate, and walked briskly towards his van; which conveniently had removable business decals. In fact it was quite similar to Dexter's van, but where Dexter's van was blue, Oscar's was white.

 _What's the fuckin' psycho got in the damn bag?_ Deb asked. It was a good question.

"I don't know," Dexter replied, "but I think it's important enough to change my plan for the night." He got up and started towards his car. Instead of breaking into the shop to check the basement, he was going to shadow Oscar to see what he does with his bag.

The route Oscar took was circuitous. Being the kind of cautious creature that he was, Dexter understood what Oscar was doing; he was making sure he wasn't being followed. It was okay; Dexter knew a few manoeuvres to avoid detection. This was one of many advantages he had having been raised and trained by a cop.

After taking a certifiable tour of Anaheim, Oscar eventually led them towards a wooded area east of the city limits. A couple of turns later, Oscar stopped and parked. Dexter followed suit just out of Oscar's lime of sight. Oscar took the bag and a shovel out of the van and ventured deeper into the woods on foot. Dexter followed, careful to avoid being seen. Finally Oscar came to a clearing that looked as if Oscar had been here several times.

 _You know what he's doing, right?_ Harry asked. Harry didn't whisper; not that he needed to. Harry was in his mind. The rational part of Dexter said that both Harry and Deb were a highly imaginative personification or projection of his own thoughts. Of course that made a lot more sense than the notion of ghosts; Dexter did not believe in ghosts.

"I do." Dexter murmured quietly. "He's making a grave for his latest victim, Lucas Woolsmith, currently listed as missing."

Oscar was, Dexter observed, really quite fit for a man his age. He made quick work of digging; of course he also knew a few tricks of technique, which probably helped. Once the hole was dug, Oscar carefully placed the bag into the hole and began to cover it back up. To Dexter, it almost looked like he was being gentle about it.

 _Well I'll be fucked sideways._ Deb commented. _This freak actually cares about his victims. How fuckin' fucked up is that shit?_

"It's more common than you might think." Dexter replied. "But before we jump to conclusions, let's make sure he's doing what I think he's doing."

Oscar finished up. Taking the shovel with him, he left the site and made his way back to his van. It was time for Dexter to make his move. Making a mental note of the exact location that Oscar just buried his bag, Dexter went back to his car and popped the trunk where he kept an emergency kit. Normally he would also keep his kill kit in there, but not tonight. Tonight was not the not the night; not yet. In the emergency kit there was a folding shovel. He took that and went back to the place where Oscar buried his prize.

 _What the fuck, Dex?_ Deb asked. _Why the hell are you bothering with this? You know what he buried. You have that motherfucker by the balls; why not just put them in a vice?_

"I plan to, Debs." Dexter replied serenely. "Having the contents of that bag is the winch that tightens the vice."

Dexter deftly dug up the hole until he got the bag that Oscar deposited. Reaching in, he pulled the bag out and glanced into it. As he expected, it held the bones of an adolescent male; he was young, barely older than Harrison. For a fraction of a second Dexter admired how clean the bones were; clearly Oscar took a great deal of pride in his work. There was a not a speck of flesh on the bones, and were he to check, Dexter was certain the marrow would be extracted as well. There was no doubt there would be no evidence that implicated Oscar in anything; other than his own eyewitness of Oscar hiding the bones. Luckily for Dexter, and unluckily for Oscar, in the Court of Morgan Dexter only needed what he had in order convict. As he packed up his prize and drove away to get home, it crossed his mind that he couldn't recall either 'Deb' or 'Harry' ever speaking to each other in his thoughts; they would sometimes acknowledge each other, but never address each other that he could recall. He wondered if that meant anything; did it show a fracturing of his his mind? Was it like those old cartoons; angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other? Was one his conscience (did he have one of those?) and the other his 'better half'? Which would be which?


	10. Chapter 10

_Washington DC_

Sergeant Detective Joseph Quinn was the kind of cop that worked primarily on instinct. Right now, his instincts were telling him that his play to bring in the Blackjack was going to work. His connections with the Irish Lords in DC were on board; they agreed that the moves Blackjack was making was bad for business, and they had come back told him the Ukrainians were willing to look away as this went down. Will, his Lieutenant, looked over the plan, and despite some reservations, was willing to go through with it.

In a nutshell, the plan was basically a sting operation. The idea was that Quinn, the dirty cop, was going to be made a target by a higher up among the Lords on an unrelated matter. Once he was committed to the job, he would get busted for the attempted murder of a police officer, and that would give them time to build a case on God knew how many other deaths. It wasn't the cleanest of collars, but it would work.

Everything was in place; Quinn even set up a location for 'the hit' to take place. It was a little coffee shop that Emily introduced him to; he figured it was as good a place to go out if anything went wrong. He was there right now, in fact, at the appointed time that everything was supposed to take place. He got his order from the counter and took a seat near the window; if he was going to serve as bait, he had to be exposed.

Quinn had taken a single sip of his coffee when another man sat down right beside him. He glanced over at the guy, who had immediately buried his face in an international newspaper. The guy looked sort of familiar, but Quinn couldn't be sure where from. All he could do now was hope for two things; first that Will and his guys could the drop on Blackjack, second that, just in case, Blackjack was a good shot.

"You were right, you know." The guy beside him said. His voice was so thick with brogue it was difficult to make out what he was saying.

"What did you say?" Quinn asked, cupping his ear. "I didn't quite catch that."

The guy looked up at him over the top of his paper, glaring at Quinn through a pair of coke-bottle thick glasses. That was when Quinn was sure he knew who this guy was. He was one of Doyle's go-to boys; Mac something or other. He was definitely the one they call Mac.

"You heard me just fine, fella." Mac replied finally. "Blackjack was becoming a liability, and needed to be liquidated."

"Great, thanks for confirming that." Quinn shot back quietly. "Why are we having this conversation here, then? Are you trying to make our business public knowledge?"

"I'm here to let you know that Doyle agrees with your assessment, but not your plan." Mac answered, his brogue making it even more difficult to hear his words in hushed tones. "Getting Blackjack arrested and on trial is problematic for obvious reasons. We'll be dealing with him on own terms."

Quinn instantly understood what Mac meant. The Lords were worried that if Blackjack went to trial he might try to plea bargain his way to a lighter sentence and be put into WITPRO or something like that. Doyle was indeed setting Blackjack up, but not for an arrest; he was setting Blackjack up to be taken down a little more permanently than that.

"But don't worry fella." Mac continued. "Your superiors will still get their case. They'll find their man in his flat, along with all the evidence they'll need to close their case on the Ukrainian. This way everybody wins, yeah?"

Then Mac placed a matchbook on the table in front of Quinn, got up, and left, patting Quinn on the shoulder as he walked away.

Quinn waited until Mac was out of sight before picking up the matchbook and unfolding the flap. Sure enough, there was an address printed neatly on the inside of the flap. Obviously, there was no name attached to this address. The first thing Quinn wanted to know was whether or not there was time to stop the Lords from taking justice into their own hands. The next thing he wondered was whether or not he should even try. On one hand, it was the good cop thing to do. On the other, if he did, he might blow his cover.

He could almost hear Deb reading him her version of the riot act for even thinking about holding out. Then he figured that Emily would accept it, but be all pissed off about it anyway.

Quinn cursed through his teeth as he punched Will's number on speed dial. Will answered on the first ring.

"Will, it's Joe." Quinn said. "I just got word from one of my sources. Word is the Lords are planning on taking Blackjack out directly. I got an address for his apartment; we gotta get some bodies there now.

He gave Will the address, and then got up to get to his car and made a B-Line for the apartment.

 _Quantico_

Penelope Garcia was on the case. It wasn't the case she wanted to be on, but she was on the case. She wanted to continue to unravel the twisted ball of yarn that was the Morgan family and their Code and the possible connection to the Original Bay Harbor Butcher; but instead she was looking for any and all possible common threads between some Creepy McCreep that had a fetish for cute little boys and carnivals and/or theme parks. In particular he seemed to favor Disney; which was awful in that put a nasty smudge on the face of Mickey, Minnie, Donald and worst of all Goofy, but he also apparently took a liking to Coney Island for awhile.

The worst cut of all, of course, was that Creepy McCreep was getting away with it; not just for years, which would be bad enough, but for decades. Either he was really good at being bad, or he was really lucky. Either way, Garcia did indeed want to see this Creep go down, and if that meant putting the Morgan's on the back burner for awhile, then so be it. The problem was, she wasn't finding anything. No names reappeared in the employee rosters of all three places, and she was yet to finish going through the thousands if not millions of residences and businesses in the respective areas. She would also have to consider the possibility he may have taken on an alias or changed his name along the way. He might have picked a kid friendly diner like McDonald's or something to work at, but that was a long shot at best.

Kevin, meanwhile, was proving Reid right; there seemed to be no written or printed version of this 'Code' anywhere in existence. That made sense; if Harry Morgan and as Garcia suspected Dr. Voegel created a code to keep Dexter and possibly Debra safe, then they would have made sure that Code was so deeply embedded into their minds it wouldn't even need to be memorized; it just be the way they thought on a day to day basis. It would be beyond training or a life strategy; it would just be a way of life.

"God, when did I get so good at getting this stuff?" she said to herself. It was a question that didn't need asking, though; she already knew. After fifteen years or so of being in it or around it on a daily basis, of course some of it was bound to rub off on her. She could just imagine what it would be like for someone who immersed in it all day every day for their entire life. If Reid was right, and he probably was, and Dexter Morgan is the Original Butcher, then he might be the perfect killer, and even her teammates might never be able to catch him.

She reminded herself to stay focused on Creepy McCreep, the creepy kidnapper. After all, this guy was almost as good as Dexter. That was, if Reid was right. The thing with Dexter was, if Reid was right as he usually is, then Dexter never misses a single detail; maybe that is what the Code that his dad and Doctor Voegel taught him was all about. That would make sense; Harry Morgan was a cop, a detective. He would know what cops look for in a case, and a shrink known as the 'psycho whisperer' would be more than up to the task of fine tuning whatever Harry the Cop might have missed. Dexter even when so far as to have fake ID's set up that were, for all intents and purposes, real; right down to legit seeming life histories in case anyone tries to deep dive. His ID as Stan Liddy had a complete history: school records, medical history, and even an employment history which was, in fact based on a real – albeit very deceased – person named Stan Liddy. It was also obvious that he had to have allies that were willing to help him stay hidden and cover any tracks he might have left behind; or at least that was the impression she got from Kevin.

That was when the penny dropped for Penelope. Dexter Morgan might or might not be as close to a perfect killer as one can ever be, but this Creepy McCreep wasn't. He couldn't be. The question is what mistake might he have made. What detail would he have missed? She looked again at the nearby businesses in all three areas of interest, looking not so much for the same name of a business, but a common thread that could be owned by the same person. There were still a lot of places to go through, but it did narrow down the search significantly. She might be looking for a specific straw of hay in a haystack, but now she was on the hunt and she would find the straw she was looking for.

 _San Diego_

Tonight _wasn't_ the night; but _the night_ was coming very soon. Dexter could feel it; the Dark Passenger was getting antsy; maybe a little too anxious. Whenever he set eyes on Harrison, it was clear that he was going through the same thing with his Shady Co-host.

One thing was settled; they had enough evidence to satisfy the Code. There was no doubt that Oscar Coalworth was their man. Personally, Dexter suspected that if he were to go about the business of digging around in the place he found the skeleton he'd find more of the same; much more. The problem he had with that is that exhuming graves was rather time consuming and he wanted to get this dealt with as soon as possible. He had the one skeleton; it would have to be enough of a representation to show this bastard what he's done. Harrison suggested collecting a whole bunch of missing kids' posters that looked like him as well. He said he could probably get a load of pictures online as well.

 _Encouraging your kid to pick up your bad habits_. Debra said. Today she was wearing the suit LaGuerta had picked out for her after she got the promotions to Lieutenant. _Good fucking job, Dex._

"Better than letting him go unchecked like Brian." Dexter countered.

 _It's not quite what I meant to happen_. Harry spoke up; wearing his street cop outfit. _I never counted on you having children. I have to admit, though, as little as I like the idea of a legacy, you're right. This is the best course to take._

 _Well that's just fucking great._ Deb objected. _Dad's taking your side again! Fine! So what's the brilliant fucknut plan? Break into his meat shop, dope him up and drag him off somewhere?_

"No quite," Dexter replied. The actual plan was to draw him out; more accurately lure him into a trap, using Harrison as bait. He'd done some research, and learned that Oscar likes to set up a kiosk in the Park on holidays to peddle his jerky. Christmas was just around the corner, and Dexter intended to have a little family time with Mickey and Minnie. The idea was to make sure Oscar saw Harrison; there was no doubt that Oscar would not be able to resist. By the time that happened, Oscars' workshop would be all set up and ready for the kill. In any case, waiting the few weeks until the holidays began, as painful as it will be, will give just enough time to set everything up; bait the hook and start to slowly reel their big fish in.

In the meantime, 'Frank Castle' had some time to resume his online arrangements with Lumen Pierce; his connection in Wisconsin who was soon to be the director of operations of the Mid-West branch of Castle Couriers. He would have to go to Racine in person eventually, so he could finalize all the arrangements. Did she have any idea whom she was really dealing with? How would she respond when she found out? Did it really matter?

Dexter wasn't sure. On one hand he supposed it did; if she the shock of knowing that not only Dexter Morgan was alive and well but also effectively her boss was upsetting to her, then all this work would be for nothing. On the other hand, she might take it well; when they parted after their time together – when he saved her life and helped her get her revenge on the group that raped and tried to murder her, she referred to him as more an angel than a monster. Then, for at least a moment, he really believed that he was doing some good, after all.

At any rate, it appeared as if Lumen had everything well in hand; three drivers and three vans were ready to go, space in Racine was just waiting to be set up and finalized. It seemed to Dexter that she had all her ducks in a row; he had no idea she would have such a good head for this kind of thing. Back here in San Diego, Hannah was proving very helpful in building up the cover of Frank Castle, owner and CEO of Castle Couriers; she set up a building as base of operations, and now his little business had a fleet of five vans and five drivers.

There was a knock on door frame of his office before Hannah came in.

"I have a message for you from Astor." She said, handing him a printed piece of paper. Dexter took it and saw one of Astor's Wonder Word puzzles. All of the letters were either circled or crossed out; the circled letters spelled out words that had to do with Hollywood, and the crossed out letters that remained spelled out a phrase that was the actual message:

GARCIA CLOSE TO WINNING OSCAR

"Her posting said to share it with you." Hannah said. "I don't know what it's supposed to mean."

"I do." Dexter said quietly. He did know; it meant that the FBI's Behavior Analysis Unit resident hacker was close to figuring out that Oscar Coalworth is the one kidnapping, possibly molesting, and then killing and probably eating the kids that looked like Harrison. "It means I'm going to have to speed things up if I'm going to play with Oscar."

 _Or you could let the Feds have this one_. Harry suggested.

Dexter ignored him; Hannah was aware that he sometimes projected his thoughts as if they were spoken by either Harry or Deb, but he still felt it was sometimes wiser if he kept most of that to himself. Also, letting the Feds have Oscar was not an option; Dexter had to have him. Harrison deserved to have him, too; it would be like Harrison was making a preemptive strike against that filthy bastard.

 _Fuck that!_ Deb exclaimed, spitting. _Those idiots will probably screw the pooch and give him some bullshit sentence._

That decided it; Dexter had to move things up. It would mean altering the plan significantly, but it could be done.

 _Anaheim, California_

SSA Unit Chief Emily Prentiss let out a long exhale in her hotel room. This case with the missing boys was proving more difficult than it should have; the problem was that the kids were vanishing without a trace, and none of the previous locations were yielding any helpful leads. So far, the best chance they had was with Garcia. She was looking for a common thread with business owners in each of the areas during the times of the disappearances. At this point, the only thing really to do was to wait.

Meanwhile, Prentiss thought, she might as well check in with Joey. She dialed him up and greeted him after her told her to thrill him, as was his custom.

"Hey, babe," he greeted back. "How's California treating you?"

Emily groaned. "This case has us stuck at the moment." She replied. "What about your thing with the hit-man? How's that coming?"

"It's pretty much done, but not the way we wanted." Joey answered. "The Irish Lords decided to take matters in their own hands. The Blackjack is officially in the wind, but we all know the Lords took him out. At least they made sure we had what we need to close the books on the Sterlingov case."

Prentiss said nothing to that. She knew from experience that may or may not be the case. It was just as likely that this Blackjack fellow was either relocated, or maybe he was thrown under the bus. Metro could close the books, but maybe the evidence was planted just to get the matter out of the way.

They soon changed the subject to something other than shop talk; mostly just a bull session. They compared notes on weather, general news, that sort of thing. Joey also asked about Reid again; ostensibly on behalf of Astor Morgan in Miami. On the surface, it came off as typical guardian stuff; like a father-type figure checking in on a daughter's potential love interest. That made enough sense; Astor was the adopted daughter of Dexter Morgan, who was the adopted brother of Debra Morgan, whom Joey Quinn was once involved with, so in a sense Astor was like a niece to Quinn. Maybe it was her job, but Emily sensed there was more to it than that, though. She couldn't place what, but it struck her odd this would all come up after Reid and Lynch went to Miami to review the original Butcher case. Eventually, they ended their call so Emily could get some sleep.

Before drifting off, it occurred to her that she didn't really know what that review yielded; Reid, Lynch, and Garcia reported directly to Barnes on that particular assignment.

In his room, Dr Spencer Reid answered his phone as it rang; the display indicating it was Kevin Lynch.

"Well, you were right," Lynch said after greetings. "There doesn't seem to be any documentation of this Code thing, but I did manage to cobble together more of that recording Penelope found. I'm sending it to your tablet now."

"Thanks, Kevin," Reid said, turning on his tablet. He clicked onto the link that Kevin sent. The video showed Harry Morgan crying, talking to Dr Evelyn Voegel who was off screen. The gist of the conversation, which of course Reid memorized instantly, was about Harry walking in on Dexter 'at work'. Seeing the fruit of their collective efforts made Harry Morgan physically ill, Harry said. He was having doubts that they were doing the right thing. Voegel was sure that they were. What bothered Harry so much was that it seemed Dexter almost expected Harry to be proud; his current playmate was some creep that walked on a murder case that Harry worked, after all. Dexter thought of it as something he was doing for Harry. In a sense, Harry added, Dexter was right; he was doing exactly what he had been taught to do, and Harry was the one taught him. Dr Voegel went to lengths to attempt to convince Harry that he did not create a monster; they simply redirected a monster in the making to something constructive.

"This is good," Reid said. "Good work, Kevin; this is what we need to really go forward. We now have something tangible to link Dexter Morgan to the Original Butcher case. I see no option but to also send this to Barnes."

"Already done," Kevin replied. "The next big question is where is Dexter now, and how do we find him?"

Reid was quiet for a moment as he mentally reviewed everything he knew about the Original Butcher, the Copycat Butcher, and of Dexter Morgan. Detective Quinn said that Dexter was involved with Hannah McKay, and Jacob Elway, former Private Investigator and the Copycat Butcher, had noted once that Hannah made her initial escape and was thought to be headed for Argentina. It was probable that Dexter would be aware of that, and entirely possible that he would try to reunite with her.

Dexter Morgan was raised in a highly systematic environment. His continued freedom would depend on maintaining a highly specific routine that would balance out both a normal _seeming_ life and his almost double identity, both of which would be strictly compartmentalized. The paradox of this arrangement would be that he would need a tight circle of people he could trust that would be able to help him maintain his cover; and someone like Hannah McKay would fit that bill. Also, someone as rigid in his manner of living like Dexter would be drawn to the familiarity that Hannah would provide whether she meant to or not. Dexter had already proven to fixate on those he cared about on some level or another when he came out of hiding in Maine to check on his adoptive daughter Astor. The chance he would fixate on Hannah was very high.

"Try looking for Hannah McKay." Reid instructed. "Look for her background, and track her that way. I'm sure if we find her, we'll find him. Start your search in Argentina; that was the last known place she was likely going to."

"Will do," Kevin said, and disconnected.

On his bed staring up at the ceiling, Spencer just hoped that, presuming the two were indeed reunited, they would be in US; otherwise they were out of the jurisdiction of the FBI. He doubted even Barnes had enough juice to do much about that.


	11. Chapter 11

_Quantico_

As little as Deputy Director of the FBI Susan Barnes liked to admit it, the Justice system of the United States of America was flawed; from law enforcement to the court system. The way the system was set up, it was all too often that some of the worst monsters in the country evaded capture for years or even decades on end; and even when they were captured, it was much too easy for them to walk away from prosecution. It was almost as if the criminals had more rights than law abiding citizens or even those who dedicated their careers and lives to serve and protect this country. Far too many of the guilty slipped through the cracks. Based on the latest reports she received from Agents Reid and Lynch, the likes of Dexter Morgan proved that to be true; that monster has evaded any consequence for his actions for years, if not decades.

Worse still, there was very little that could be done about it in any _official_ capacity. The kind of measures needed to improve the system, to make it more efficient, would require massive violations of the Constitution and impositions on the very human rights and liberties that America was supposed to stand for. It was an ugly quagmire; the way the Nation was built, the very things that made it great, were also its greatest weakness. So again, the system was built to fail, and there was little that could be done about it.

 _Unofficially_ , however...

Deputy Director Barnes eyed the file marked PROJECT FAILSAFE, which existed only in hard copy. Resting on top of the file was an unmarked disk which contained on it everything the FBI had on Dexter Morgan, including the latest reports from Agents Reid and Lynch. Now, more than ever, Barnes was convinced that Dexter Morgan - along with Harry Morgan, Dr. Evelyn Voegel, and possibly Debra Morgan – had proven the failures of the American Justice System. Ironically, though, they also seemed to have provided a solution to those failures. One of the four may or may not have had anything to do with any of it, and three of the four were unquestionably deceased, but the one that was left was the key to making to it all work.

If anyone could make her proposals for PROJECT FAILSAFE work, Dexter Morgan was the ideal candidate. Since it was apparent that the Bureau would not be able to beat him, why not hire him? He could continue to do precisely what he has been doing; making the Country's monster problem disappear permanently- all under the radar of the Media, of course. Now it was simply a matter of finding him and bringing him in. On that front, Agent Reid might very well have the right idea.

 _Anaheim, California_

When Oscar Coalworth told his wife about his intentions to retire once and for all, she was delighted. Immediately she began to speculate at the things they could do with all their time together; a conversation that Oscar had had plenty of time to rehearse in his head on this particular topic ensued, and Oscar had all the right expressions and responses down to a science. She would never even suspect a thing about his true nature, or her true purpose in his life. She undoubtedly thought he meant that he was planning to close up his butcher shop; she was only half right. She did not need to know about the other half of the equation that he was referring to; in fact it was best that she didn't, for her own well being as much as his.

Oscar finally escaped the ordeal of expressing joy with his wife over all the time they would have by insisting that he still had a lot to do at the shop in order to close it all down properly; closing a business is a business in itself, he explained.

And now he was at his shop, making up hand-written signs indicating his intentions to close-out after so many years of loving service. As he did this, he practiced his spiel for the regulars he had: Something to the effect of saying that it wasn't that business was bad, just that he was getting too damn old to keep doing this anymore. He might even make a joke of offering to sell it to a couple of them.

That was when the door chimed to indicate someone was coming in. Oscar looked up from his work with his brightest and most welcoming smile to see a man somewhere in his forties sporting a well trimmed beard, a ball cap turned backwards, a golf shirt with a logo of a castle chess piece and the words CASTLE COURIERS in a mistral font, black khakis, and carrying a box marked SHARPCO. On top of the box were a clipboard and a pen.

"Can I help you?" Oscar asked, sure he had seen this man before; recently even.

"Yeah, I have a delivery for..." the man said, his voice a little bit mousy, "Oscar Coalworth?"

Oscar stood up to his full height. "That would be me, but I didn't place any order."

The mousy voiced man looked perplexed, consulted the clipboard, and then let out a grunt of sudden comprehension. "Well, it says right here; SHARPCO has selected you and your business to sample a free set of their newest line of knives!" He held out the box with a goofy smile.

Reluctantly, Oscar stepped forward and took the box and examined the note on the clipboard. Sure enough, the first page was a letter claiming the company was offering a complimentary set of knives...blah,blah,blah...

He turned to the next page, took the pen, and signed the invoice of receipt.

"I bet they're looking for an endorsement," the mousy voiced man suggested as Oscar took the box. Then the door chimed went off again; this time a boy, nice and healthy, blonde, and the perfect age marched in.

"Hey, dad, can we get ice cream after this?" he asked.

"Richie," mouse-voice scolded, "I thought I told you to stay in the van!"

For a moment, the rest of their argument faded into a kind of white noise; Oscar was enraptured by little Richie. He was, to put it simply, perfect. Never, in all of his years, had Oscar Coalworth seen a finer specimen.

"...sir?" Mouse-man said, waving at him to jog him back into the real world. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," Oscar replied as he tried to casually wipe his chin, realizing to his horror he had actually started drooling. "It seems lately my mind has a tendency to wander from time to time. A sign of my age, I suppose. Anyway, that's the main reason why I think it's about time to close shop."

"Oh, you're going out of business?" Mouse-man asked, concerned.

Oscar held up the sign he was working on, which read GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!

"I'm afraid so." He said, letting out a faint laugh with a wan smile. He turned his attention to Richie. "But the important thing right now is ice cream; am I right?"

"That's right!" Richie agreed triumphantly.

Oscar let out a hearty chuckle as Richie's dad relented. "Well I'm glad that's settled!" He exclaimed. "Now, the important part is; what's your favorite kind?"

Richie paused to think about it. "Cookie Dough," He said finally. "No! Butterscotch Ripple!"

"Both are excellent choices!" Oscar said amiably. "Personally, I can always go for Neapolitan."

"I'm a straight ahead French Vanilla guy, myself." The Dad said. "Well, anyway, I guess we've taken up enough of your time, Mr. Coalworth. Come on, Richie, let's get that ice cream. Say good-bye."

"'Bye, Mr. Coalworth!" Richie said as the both of them turned to leave. "I hope you have a good retirement!"

Oscar smiled broadly and waved as they left. He watched little Richie as they got into the company van, recalling vaguely looking up Castle Couriers recently. That seemed almost irrelevant now; all he could really think about was how perfect the boy was; he going to miss the hunt.

Once in the van, Harrison noted his dad glancing over at him appreciatively.

"Good job, son." Dad said. "You played your part well; you got his attention, now the hook is baited."

"Thanks, Dad," Harrison said. He understood the new plan. It was really just a variation of the original one; he was still going to be bait for Mr. Coalworth so that Dad could ambush him with one of mom's sleeping cocktails. Then they would put him on the table – which was actually a makeshift bench in the back of the van which was already set up as their improvised kill room. It wasn't the best choice; but it was necessary if they were going to get this guy before the Feds did. It was Showtime tonight. Later on, he would come running into the meat shop to ask Mr. Coalworth if he could use his phone to call home because he got lost and lost his cell phone. Mr. Coalworth would not be able to resist such an easy target. He would try to lead him downstairs. Meanwhile, Dad would be waiting just behind the door that leads downstairs inside. He could break into the shop's back door easily.

"So, what did you think of him?" Dad asked.

"He was gross." Harrison answered. "Did you see the way he was gawking at me? He was actually, drooling!"

"I saw that." Dad assured him. "Let's go over the plan again."

They did. Dad seemed satisfied; even though he wasn't thrilled about putting him in harm's way.

"Okay, then," Dad nodded slowly. "Tonight's the night."

 _Miami, Florida_

Astor Morgan couldn't sleep. There was a pile of bodies from the gang war going on in the DADE district, but that wasn't the issue keeping her up. She was worried about Dexter, Hannah, and especially Harrison. The Feds were looking for all the wrong things; and by that she meant they were looking for all the right things if they wanted to figure out what they were up to and where they were. Dr. Reid was scary smart, and he had the help of not one but two tech-savvy superheroes; that Lynch guy was bad enough, but this Garcia was downright scary with her skills. Luckily, she was preoccupied with the missing kids in California. Unfortunately, that put her attention right where Dexter and family was living and most likely operating. Knowing what she knew about Dexter now, she had no doubt that he was going after Oscar Coalworth, owner of that meat shop and almost certainly the one behind the kids going missing. Garcia was close to finding Oscar, too, and there wasn't much Astor could do to stop her. All she could do is what she had already done; send word to Dexter as a heads up. She hoped he would back off and just let the Feds get him, but she doubted that would happen; once Dexter got an idea in his head, he struggled to let it go.

And now, Lynch, under direction of Dr. Reid, was doing a number of searches for Hannah, and sending his reports to someone called Susan Barnes, Deputy Director of the Bureau. Hannah had covered her tracks well, so it wasn't too big of a worry yet, but he was on the right track. She, Astor, would have to keep track of his efforts and hope to find ways to thwart them. So far, the only real thread that might work for Lynch is to look at locations of Florists opening and closing within three to six months, and then cross reference that with photographs of the proprietors respectively.

What worried her most of all was this Barnes lady; what was she was up to, anyway? What interest did she have in Dexter Morgan? The most she could access was that she noticed his name as a potential suspect in the original Bay Harbor Butcher case; both in the original notes of SSA Frank Lundy (deceased), and the follow up notes of Lt Maria LaGuerta (also deceased). Astor didn't buy it; why put so much time and energy into a case that was resolved twice? How does that help the reputation of the FBI?

No; she was after something else. She had to be. The question was, what was she really after? Whatever it was, it didn't seem to exist in any digital format. All she could find was correspondence between Reid, Garcia, Lynch, and Barnes; and Barnes seemed to playing her cards close to her chest even with the Agents. Whatever she had in regards to her real interest in Dexter, it wasn't on any computer.

"I fucking hate the smart ones." Astor murmured. Then she picked up her phone to call the landline of Fisher Flowers, making sure her end was secure.

 _Quantico_

Much to his dismay, Kevin Lynch looked at his display before answering his phone to see that Reid was calling; most likely to ask about his progress in tracking and locating Hannah McKay. The problem was, he didn't have anything to tell him.

"Hello, Dr. Reid," he answered dryly.

"Hey, Kevin," Reid said back. "I was calling to inquire about your progress regarding Hannah McKay."

Kevin sighed. "As of right now I have nothing." He replied. "The last record of her is in Elway's notes about her intention to go to Argentina, like you said; and that's literally years after any previous record of her following her escape from police custody just as she was about to go to trial for her murders. By the way, did you know that she was originally turned in by Dexter Morgan? I suppose you did know that; I mean, you read the file and you remember everything, so I guess that was a redundant question...

"Kevin..." Reid prompted.

"Right; I'm rambling, sorry about that. All I'm saying is that other than Elway's notes, there's no trace of her anywhere; for all we know Elway got it wrong and she never went to Argentina. She might have put that story out there in order to make sure we or anyone else started looking in the wrong direction."

"I don't think so," Reid retorted. "She likely took up one or mare aliases over the years; it would make sense that she would as a survival mechanism- she is a survivalist first and foremost. Come to think of it, she would also probably alter her appearance. She would, however, just as likely stick to something that she knew about in order to make a living through legal means."

"Hold on," Kevin interjected. "If she's all about survival, then why wouldn't she keep all her activities underground where they couldn't be tracked at all?"

"Because part of survival is risk assessment," Reid answered. "No matter how careful you are, engaging in criminal activity carries the risk of being caught. The best way to avoid getting caught is to avoid engaging with law enforcement at all. Therefore, a survivalist would want to stay off the radar of law enforcement as much as possible, and the most efficient way to do that is to break as few laws as possible. That means a legal income, paying taxes – as legally as one can under a false name – and behaving in ways that will not draw any police attention. She probably drives the speed limit and takes care to park legally and avoids jaywalking."

"I get it," Kevin said. "If the cops aren't even looking at you, they can't catch you. That's probably how that Dexter guy avoided capture for so long. I bet that's even in that Code of his."

"Probably," Reid agreed.

"So how do find her now?"

"Well, we know she worked as a florist for years before she was turned in." Reid suggested. "That was partly how she came up with use of Aconite in her murders. Start by looking at florists in Argentina that opened up after her last known sighting in Miami; focus on major cities at first. Again, for survival purposes, she would likely try to lose herself in a crowd; to blend in. She would probably also present as a single mother; we know that Dexter had entrusted the care of his biological son to her before he faked his own death. Then mark when each of those places close down and new ones open within six months in other places. We might find a correlation that makes a trail worth looking at; if you can find photographs of the owners of these businesses. She may have altered her appearance, but i imagine it would be in minor ways; a full blown surgery would be high end and possibly high profile, she would avoid that."

"Will do; don't call me, I'll call you." Kevin replied, trying to keep the awe out of his voice as he disconnected the call. How did he do that; figure people out without even meeting them?

 _San Diego, California_

Hannah McKay, aka Jennifer Fisher, hung up her business line, ending the conversation between herself and Astor. Astor was concerned that the FBI might be onto her; they were certainly trying to track her movements since she left Miami. Her biggest concern was they might figure out to look for businesses that could be hers and monitoring when they opened and closed – corresponding those with photographic evidence of the proprietors.

Hannah was thankful for the heads up, but wasn't too worried. If the Feds were looking for businesses that closed and then effectively reopened, they would be looking n the wrong place. She never closed any of them; she sold them. At the very least, that would buy some time. The possibility of photo evidence of her presence was a concern, but what made her really uneasy was the chance they might look for single mothers who we florists, especially if they managed to piece together a single mother who recently moved in with a partner. She thought about calling Dexter to update him on the status on the FBI search into them, but then decided it could wait; he and Harrison already had enough to think about. This news would only distract them.

 _Anaheim, California_

 _Tonight's_ the _night..._

 _Much like it was in Miami, the smog in the air of Orange County has a way of refracting the light cast from the moon to make it appear as a great red spot in the sky; even better, tonight it was a waning quarter moon, which made it look like a small, crescent shaped cut revealing a sliver of blood in the fabric of the night air. I wonder if Harrison sees the same thing..._

 _...never mind..._ Dexter blinked to bring himself back into focus. This time it was especially important to stay on task; out of necessity Harrison was at risk on this one. It was, however, a good lesson on logistics and tactics; a practical lesson to see how well he had grasped the theory of the Code. He took some solace in the fact he would never be too far away; he would easily be able to intervene if anything went wrong or if Oscar did something unexpected.

The van, with the back all set up as a makeshift kill room, was parked behind Oscar's shop in such a manner to obscure the view from any passersby of the rear entrance. Dexter had also made sure that there were no security cameras or alarms; so they were safe on that front. The kill room was a little bit cramped and unstable for Dexter's liking, but it would have to do; maybe it would teach Harrison that necessity is mother of invention.

"Are you ready?" He asked Harrison.

"It's Showtime," his son confirmed.

Dexter nodded, understanding what he meant all too well. "Okay, good; now remember; wait for a minute after I'm inside before going around front to do your part. That will give me enough time to get into position."

"I got it, Dad," Harrison said, his tone betraying a shade of impatience which Dexter decided to let pass; his 'Shady Co-host' was probably as anxious to take centre stage as his own Dark Passenger was to take the wheel. That was something Dexter could identify with so thoroughly it disturbed him a little. Now he had an idea what it must have been like for Harry to see that kind of darkness growing in his son – or at least the boy he took on as his son in Harry's case. Therein was Dexter's inner conflict; on one hand, he was kind of glad to have a way to really bond with his son. On the other hand, he still wished there was a better life for Harrison than the one he had.

 _That's two ways I failed you, Dexter_. Harry said as Dexter exited the van to approach the back door of the shop. _First, I couldn't see any way to keep you from the life you lead. Second, I didn't have the stomach to see this through to its inevitable end._

"You did the best you could." Dexter replied. "In fact, you did better than I or anyone could expect; you never had a Dark Passenger. You didn't fail, Dad. If it weren't for you, I'd either be dead or in jail by now."

Harry fell silent as Dexter picked the lock to the rear entrance of Oscar's shop and let himself in.

Oscar had barely locked up for the night and was on his way out through the back doors after having put up his retirement signs. He hadn't even touched the light switch for the night when there was a frantic banging on the front door. Oscar turned around and suddenly found faith in God; surely He was sending Oscar a retirement gift. One final meal before putting away the tools of his trade for good; it was Little Richie standing at his front door. Young, blond, healthy and perfect, there he was, looking desperate to come in; alone and frightened, they prey was coming straight to the hunter. Oscar had no choice but to go to the door and open it up.

"Is that Richie?" He asked. "Didn't we meet this morning? Didn't your dad deliver me those free knives?"

"Yes, Mr. Coalworth, that's me." Richie replied. "Can I come in? Please, it's an emergency!"

Oscar said of course, and stepped aside to let the poor lad into his shop. "What's the big emergency?"

"IwasplayingintheparkandlostmyphoneandthenIlosttrackoftimewhenIwaslookingforitandthen..."

"Slow down, dear boy," Oscar said calmly. "Take a deep breath and tell me again."

Little Richie took a breath. "Okay, so as I was saying, I was playing in the park, then I lost my phone, so I was looking for it and suddenly it was dark outside and I realized I didn't really know how to get home. Dad and I have only lived here a couple of weeks since he got this new job."

"I see," Oscar said as paternally as he could. "What you're saying is that you're lost and can't find your phone to call home. Is that right?"

"Yes, sir," Richie answered. "I was wandering around, looking for it when I saw your shop and remembered it; I thought maybe you would let me use your phone to call home."

Oscar smiled. "Yes, of course," he said, leading little Richie to a spot behind the counter where the business phone was kept. Richie thanked him and reached for the phone, and just Oscar was about put a choke hold on the kid when he felt a pinprick, like a bee sting, on his neck.

Suddenly everything went fuzzy; his knees got weak and much to his shame he lost control of his bladder. He fell backwards into the arms of someone, but he drifted off into dreamland before he could see a face.

Watching from the access door to the back of the shop, Dexter couldn't help but be impressed by how well Harrison played his part; the telling of The Story as a single-word run-on sentence the first time through was a nice touch.

 _Nice; the little fucker is a natural_. Deb observed with clear contempt. _Like father, like son, right? I guess fucking nature wins this round._

Dexter ignored her. He had to pay attention to what was going on in the other room. So far, everything was taking place just as planned. Oscar's body language said he was not able to resist such a perfect opportunity. He calmed 'Little Richie' down, got him to tell The Story rationally, and confirmed an understanding. It was almost paternal; the way Oscar was acting. Then Oscar went slightly off script; instead of taking Harrison into the back room, he showed him a phone just behind the counter.

Luckily, Dexter was able to slip into the main room undetected and inject Oscar with Hannah's cocktail before he could do anything else. The cocktail was good; a little slower acting than his usual M-99, but not by much. It lasted almost as long, and did have the advantage of completely dissipating from the body in the event it gets found- however unlikely that was.

Oscar wet himself as he passed out; that happened sometimes. Without hesitation or prompting, Harrison grabbed Oscar's feet as Dexter caught the torso. Together they carried him through the back room towards the rear exit. At some point between Oscar being drugged and Harrison grabbing the feet, Harrison thought to put on his gloves. He was picking up the nuances Harry's Code quickly. On the way through the back room, Harrison paused to take a device with him. Dexter was about to object, but then figured it wouldn't really matter.

As planned, Harrison went into the van to open the rear doors so Dexter could haul Oscar into the van, and onto the makeshift table. Then together they stripped Oscar down and wrapped him up. All in all, the Plan was going well. They still had time to drive away inconspicuously and without suspicion. Dexter knew just the place to take their new playmate.

 _Washington, DC_

Sgt. Detective Joseph Quinn could hardly believe it; those Irish Lord motherfuckers screwed him twice over. First, they went and took the whole Blackjack issue into their own hands, and then they made the body disappear. Sure, they left plenty of evidence to close the Sterlingov case, but for all he knew the Lords just moved him to another location. That wasn't likely, but still possible.

Quinn's phone rang.

"This is Quinn, thrill me." He answered.

"Hello, Sergeant, my name is Dr. Spencer Reid of the Behavioral Analysis Unit." It was the Beanpole. "You might remember me from..."

"Yeah, I do!" Quinn replied happily. "You're one of Em's guys, the one that Astor keeps going on about!" He laughed mildly. "I think she's got a bit of a crush on you, to be honest. Hey, weren't you just in Miami a little while back?"

"Yes, I was." Reid answered. "In fact that's what I'm calling about. You see, an associate of mine and I were there to review a major case, and one of your former coworkers' name came up. I wanted to ask you this; what can you tell me about Dexter Morgan?"

The Beanpole was going straight to business. No small talk, no establishing rapport, he was just getting right to the point. Quinn wasn't sure if this was good or bad; it could be he was fishing to see if Quinn knew where Dex was, but it might be a good way to find out what the Feds have figured out and what they didn't.

He let out an exasperated sigh. "Is this about the Butcher or Trinity?" He asked, figuring he could do a little fishing of his own.

"Just answer the question, please." Reid retorted, clearly not willing to show his hand.

"Alright," Quinn said, adding a bit of ice to his voice. "Let me get to my point. If this is about the Butcher case, you're barking up the wrong tree, Doc. I mean, Dex and I might not have gotten along too good, but even I'll say there's no way Dexter Morgan had anything to do with what Doakes did. Dex was a lab geek, the blood guy around here and he helped Masuka with Forensics on the Butcher case, but that's it."

"Really? Tell me this, why didn't you two get along?" Reid asked.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Quinn countered.

"Answer the question, please."

"Fine; I was partners with his sister Deb Morgan when she became Detective for awhile. She and I got...you know...close. My guess is that the whole thing was a brother hating the sister's boyfriend thing, you know what I mean?"

"I see," Reid said meditatively. "And do you think that was the reason he messed up a major case in court for you on one occasion; because he didn't his sister's boyfriend?"

"Again, I don't see what that has to do with anything, but okay, I'll answer. No, I don't think that. He had just recently gotten married and his wife just popped out a baby around that time. He was off his game. Sure I was pissed when it happened, but I got over it, alright?" Quinn answered. This wasn't going the way he hoped; the Beanpole had him on the ropes.

"So that messed up case had nothing to do with your suspicions of Dexter Morgan following the murder of his wife Rita Morgan?" Reid asked.

How did he know about that? Quinn was sure LaGuerta kept that off the books.

Quinn tried to play it cool. "Hey, come on, Doc." He said. "Whenever someone who's married gets killed in their own home, the spouse is always a suspect, right? Hell, ninety percent of the time it is the spouse. And please don't correct me with whatever the actual stat is; you know I mean that it usually is the spouse. I was just being a good detective.

"And were just being a good detective when you accosted Jonah Mitchell in attempt to identify Kyle Butler- a known associate of Arthur Mitchell- as an alias used by Mr. Morgan?"

The Beanpole had done his homework. He knew fucking everything; or at least seemed to think he did. Quinn kept his cool.

"Look, I was following a hunch. It didn't pan out and I took a bunch of lumps for it. Even Deb got pissed at me over it. You Feds came in on part of that and cleared Dex of that shit. My part in it had nothing to do with Deb." Quinn said.

"Isn't it true that Dexter came just short of confessing to the crime right after it took place?" Reid asked.

"He said it was his fault." Quinn countered. "That's different." Actually, Dex's exact words were 'it was me', but anyone who had any sense knew what he meant.

"Let me ask you this; how is it different?"

"I'm not a big shot Profiler like you, Doc," Quinn replied, sensing a turn in the conversation, "But even I know that he meant he blamed himself for failing to defend his home. He might've been a dork, but he was still a man. And for the record, since you seem to know everything else, I'm sure you're aware that LaGuerta reopened the Butcher case herself and put everything she had into fingering Dex to clear Doakes' name, but everything came up Doakes. It looks to me like your boy Lundy got it right. Why don't you just drop it, already?"

"You're absolutely right, I am aware that Maria LaGuerta reopened the case following the DDK murders." Reid answered. "If I'm not mistaken, she found a piece of evidence that would have linked the two cases; specifically a blood slide like the ones the original Butcher used to collect as trophies. How do you suppose that got there?"

Joe Quinn guffawed. "For all I know, LaGuerta planted it so she'd have a reason to reopen the case and try to clear Doakes's name. You know she did her damnedest to frame Dex. She even tried to plant evidence on his boat. Why she chose Dexter to railroad I couldn't tell you; maybe because he and Doakes never got along."

"What makes you think LaGuerta would go to such depths?" Reid asked.

"Oh, come on!" Quinn exclaimed. "Did you ever read her jacket? She was a political animal first and a cop second. She'd do just about anything to get what she wanted. So look, Doc, I got a lot going on right now, so if you don't mind, I'd like to wrap this up – sooner is better than later."

"We're almost done, Sergeant, I just have a few more questions." Reid said, clearly undeterred. "If you could, I'd like to hear what you have to say about the Oliver Saxton case."

"You want to know about the Brain Surgeon?" Quinn inquired. He racked his brain trying to figure out what that had to do with Doakes or the Bay Harbor Butcher. Doakes was long dead by then. He got why DDK might be relevant, but Saxton?

"Specifically I'm interested in the nature of his death." Reid specified. "He was killed in the interrogation room at Miami Metro Homicide by Dexter Morgan shortly before Hurricane Laura hit."

"That was self defense!" Quinn retorted. Now he understood what was going on; the Beanpole was profiling the geek, and collecting whatever evidence he could. Fortunately, anything he said could be inadmissible anyway.

"What I want to know is why Dexter Morgan was in the room in the first place." Reid pressed. "He was never a cop; he was forensics and had no real reason to participate in interviewing a suspect."

"He was brought in to collect Forensic evidence." Quinn replied. "You know; under the creep's fingernails, his hair, that sort of thing."

It was a weak explanation, but it might be enough.

"Thank you, Sergeant. That will be all." Reid said abruptly and he disconnected the call.

 _Anaheim, California_

After disconnecting his call to Sergeant Detective Quinn, Dr. Spencer Reid pondered what he had picked up from their talk. He remembered Quinn was Sergeant Detective at Miami Metro during the copycat butcher case, and was on the force for quite awhile before that. Emily had already mentioned Quinn mentioning Astor Morgan talking about him, so he was well prepared for that attempt at diversion.

Much as Reid expected, Quinn had answers for everything he was asked; all of them more or less what Reid could have predicted. Of course all of them placed Quinn firmly in support of Dexter Morgan. That meant either Quinn bought what Dexter was selling, or it was possible that Quinn was providing cover for Dexter. The fact they, Quinn and Dexter (Reid refused to refer to Dexter as 'Morgan', that name belonged to Derek), didn't get along so well dampened the likelihood of the later, but there was a good chance they may have reconciled their differences following Debra Morgan's death. Reid also knew that Quinn had in the past played a little fast and loose with regulations; though it was a nice touch to legitimize his shady dealings by making it all a part of his 'undercover work'.

Reid wished he could have asked his questions in person. It was difficult to discern for certain whether Quinn was being honest over the phone. He was very good at voice control; he only appeared agitated at points that would be appropriate.

Reid's phone rang. He looked at the display and saw it was Garcia.

"I think I might have found him!" She declared as soon as Reid answered his phone.

"You mean Dexter Morgan? You found him already? How did you do that?" Reid replied."What? Oh! No, my big brained beauty," Garcia shot back. "I mean I think I might have found the Creepy McCreep that has all of you in sunny California. You remember that I was assigned to cross reference businesses that existed in all three states during the times of the kids' disappearances. Well, that list was way too long to be of any use, you'd be amazed at how many businesses and/or franchises that set of parameters turns up – well, maybe you wouldn't; I'm sure you could bang off the exact number without my telling you. BUT, what I did was instead of focusing on the businesses themselves, I narrowed it down to business owners; as in, the specific people who owned and operated said business. Now here's where the field gets narrowed down significantly. I found around a dozen or so, and of those dozen only five are still alive, and only three are still running their stores. AND, of those three, there's only one that is the actual direct operator of the business."

"Oh, ok," Reid said, mildly disappointed and only slightly bothered at his own obsession with tracking down Dexter Morgan; perhaps it was because of that one interview they had together during the Copycat Butcher case. "Good work Garcia. Who do you have?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Garcia said; Reid could almost see her grin through the phone. "I give you Oscar Coalworth, owner and operator of Coalworth Meats in Anaheim, California, just blocks away from Disneyland. I already checked, and he has no criminal record; not so much as a speeding ticket or even a charge for spitting on the sidewalk, but he was running a meat market in both Orlando and New York at the right times, and get this; the disappearances seem to have stopped when he left town. At least, that's what can be found when someone like me looks at the dates."

Reid thought about it for a second. It wasn't much, but there was certainly a circumstantial case to be made to at least go and talk to this Oscar Coalworth. Also, whoever was taking these kids had been doing it for a very long time without even being looked at by the police; and other than not committing a crime, the best way to avoid getting caught was to not draw police attention, even for misdemeanors. Besides, at this point, the team would take what they can get on this case.

"That's great, Garcia." Reid said. "Send us the information. I'll get the others."

"Way ahead of you, boy wonder," Garcia shot back. "Sending you his business and home address, which he shares with his wife Delores Coalworth...now."

The call ended. Reid got up and went out to join Prentiss, Rossi, JJ, and Seaver.

 _This is the place. It's not the ocean, but it should suffice for our purposes; the grand debut of my Dark Passenger and Harrison's Shady Co-Host in a grisly, deadly display of our Code at work. Lacking a boat, disposal could have proven to be a problem, but apparently Oscar had provided an answer to that problem. I took us to the very spot Oscar had buried his latest victim; it seemed like the best option given the current circumstances. Of course, there's always a chance something or someone might get dug up, literally..._  
 _...I really need to get a boat._

"Here we are!" Dexter said, a hint of cheer in his voice; albeit forced. He couldn't help but think maybe Deb was right. Maybe it would have been better to get Harrison some help. Then again, they start asking him questions about himself, there's good odds questions about Dexter would come up, then it would only be a matter of time before an investigation took place; he covered his tracks well, but how long before some tiny mistake revealed everything? Vincent Masuka found one once; that algae on the rocks he'd use to weigh down his playmates. If Dexter wasn't directly involved with the case, he would quite possibly have been caught a long time ago.

"What is this place?" Harrison asked, looking around.

"It's the place where our playmate back there buried his victims." Dexter answered.

Harrison's head snapped to gaze at Dexter. He gazed at Dexter a moment and nodded appreciatively. "Nice one, dad," he said. "It's a perfect place to set the final stage for our guest star. He'll get a full idea of what he really did."

Dexter raised an eyebrow. He had to admit; his son made a decent point. He didn't much like the risks involved, but there was a kind of poetry to his logic. It could be interesting to see where this was going.

"It's time to suit up." Dexter advised. They both turned to get into the back of the van where Oscar lay, still sleeping off Hannah's cocktail, wrapped in plastic on the makeshift table that father and son set up for him. They got dressed in their killing gear; Dexter checked his blades and saws. Harrison picked up the device he grabbed from Oscar's prep room and the skull of the kid Oscar was trying to bury. At first Dexter thought it was just a souvenir, but as he watched Harrison match one end of the device to the hole in the kid's skull, he figured out what it was. It was a bolt gun, most likely the weapon he used to finish the boys he kidnapped off. The development of Harrison's Shady Co-host was getting more and more interesting with each passing moment.

"It's Showtime." Harrison whispered, pointing at Oscar on the table.

"What the hell is this? Where am I?" Oscar groaned, feebly trying to get up despite the bonds.

"Oh, good, you're awake!" Dexter greeted him. "I'd... I mean we'd hate for you to miss out on this part. He gestured with his arms so that Oscar would see the all the pictures of the missing boys lining the plastic walls lining the interior of the van. The last thing Oscar looked at was the pile of skeletal remains of his latest victim. "You needed the opportunity to get a glance at your life's work."

"Is that what this is about?" Oscar sneered. "What are you, some kind of avenging angel? Bullshit! You're a vigilante asshole, and every bit the hunter that I am."

"Shut up!" Harrison exclaimed, brandishing the bolt gun. "Don't you dare equate yourself to my dad!"

Dexter restrained Harrison. "It's alright, son. Remember, we need to hold our temper. Letting our temper get the best of us will lead to mistakes, and mistakes will get us caught."

"Your son, you say!" Oscar laughed. "It all makes sense now. You're that courier that's been sniffing around, and he's your son."

They both glared at Oscar. Neither of them said anything.

"Don't get me wrong," Oscar continued. "I think it's great; a predator training his cub. I wish I had kids; I'd do the very same thing. We're the same, you and I."

It was Dexter's turn to laugh. "Do you have any idea how many of you do that? I've heard them all; you don't have to do this, we're the same, let's make a deal, everything. Truth is, we're nothing alike. You kill kids. Judging from the damage to the bones, I'd say you play with them first. Then you take that bolt gun and place a bolt right here." He pushed his index finger hard into Oscar's forehead. "I have standards. I never harm the innocent, certainly never children. To use your analogy, I only hunt hunters like you."

Oscar's smile faded. "So that's it, is it?" He asked. "You know, I have a wife. She'll notice I'm missing. She'll call the cops. They'll find you."

"I doubt it." Dexter countered, slicing Oscar's right cheek neatly with a scalpel and collecting a drop of his blood for a slide. Right behind him, Harrison swabbed the wound with a Q-tip which he quickly placed in a small glass phial. "They will never find your body, and their investigation will lead to a paper trail that says you skipped town to Tahiti. A deeper search will uncover your involvement with the kids that have gone missing –all circumstantial, but enough to keep the authorities interested. The fact you've skipped town will help build their case, especially since apparently you felt the Feds were getting too close. As for Delores, well, she'll just have to learn to live with the fact she married one of the worst monsters ever to grace my... our table."

He looked over his blades and selected one. Then he raised it over head, ready to plunge it into Oscar's chest. Then he hesitated, looking at Harrison. He lowered the knife, turning the handle towards his son.

"How cute, giving the cub the honors." Oscar commented. Dexter deftly shoved a gauze bandage into Oscar's mouth.

Harrison took the knife, examined it, and set it aside. He took up the bolt gun instead as he approached Oscar. He placed the end of the bolt gun between Oscar's eyes.

"Live by the sword," Harrison pressed the bolt action, sending the bolt into his brain. "Die by the sword."

 _He likes his kill to match the way his guest stars killed; a let the punishment fit the crime type of thing. Very interesting; again with the poetry. Not only that, but in the event that any bodies are found they might never be pegged as a serial. At the very least Harrison will have bought some time before any pattern is detected. Is this what evolution looks like? Does each generation advance and improve their technique – their way of life?_

"Very good, son," Dexter said, patting Harrison on the back. "How do you feel?"

"I don't know how to explain it." Harrison replied. "I feel like I did something good. So I feel good, I guess."

That was more or less what Dexter expected. He nodded, accepting that answer. Harrison was still young, so he would understand his feelings – or lack thereof – in time.

"Now we do the clean up." He said. "In the Code, this part is critical for following the first rule."

"Don't get caught." Harrison recited.

Just as Garcia had texted the others the information on Oscar Coalworth, Reid had shown up. Then Prentiss sent JJ and Rossi to the home address while she and Reid went to the business address to take a look there. State Police insisted on sending a forensics team along with them; just in case. Emily didn't think the timing was right for that, but didn't argue the point.

Along the way, about a block away, Prentiss noted a plain white van pass by. When they got to the butcher shop, the lights were out; the place looked as if it was closed for the night, except for the fact the door was unlocked. They let themselves in; careful to maintain a path of contamination out of respect for the State Forensics team.

"The lights are out, the doors are open, and nobody seems to be minding the store." Prentiss noted. "I don't see any signs of a struggle; what do you think? Maybe he caught news of the FBI coming in to investigate the missing boys and decided to make a break for it?"

"I suppose it's possible." Reid concurred. "But then why'd he leave the door open?"

"Here's something," one of the forensic techs called, holding a hand-made sign up which announced the place was going out of business. "He might very well have been meaning to retire."

The techs went about dusting for prints n the off chance they'll find something useful; it was almost certain they'd find Coalworth's prints in his own shop, for one thing, but maybe he had a victim here that touched something. Emily and Reid went through the rear access to the downstairs area; it was a storage room, a walk in freezer, and a prep area that seemed just a little bit too clean. While it made sense that a meat cutter would keep a clean shop, this seemed a little excessive; unless maybe somebody had a reason to be this immaculate.

"Hey, Prentiss, come take a look at this!" Reid called her over to a counter. On that counter was a file folder full of news clippings of the missing boys.

"Well, what do we have here?" Another tech called near the big sink. She was swabbing the drain with a q-tip. "I think I found a little blood. Probably bovine or maybe pig, but you never know."

While Prentiss and Spence were at the shop, JJ and Rossi arrived at the Coalworth house. Rossi knocked on the door, and an elderly woman in her late sixties answered.

"Good evening, ma'am," Rossi greeted. "Please pardon the lateness of this visit. I'm Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi, and this is SSA Jennifer Jareau." They both flashed their badges. "Again, I apologize for showing up so late, but..."

"You're here to ask about Oscar." Delores Coalworth interrupted glumly. "Probably in regards to those missing boys; am I right?"

"As matter of fact, ma'am, yes you are." JJ confirmed. "May I ask how you knew that?"

"If we're going to talk about that, you might as well come on in." Delores replied, waving them in as she moved away from the door, leaving it open. "I just made some tea if you want; I imagine this is going to take awhile."

Rossi and JJ followed Delores in, and took a pass on the tea.

"All due respect, Mrs. Coalworth," Rossi began, "when we got here, you indicated that you might know something about your husband and his possible involvement with this case. We need to know what you meant by that."

Delores Coalworth let out a sigh and nodded slowly. "I haven't really known all that long." She said. "I've suspected something was wrong for the last five years- we've been married ten – but it wasn't until that Seaver woman from the FBI showed up that I started putting everything together. See, he always seemed a little too fond of children, especially for someone who had no clear interest in having kids of his own."She paused and poured herself a tea. "I know I should have contacted you earlier, and if you're going to charge me with being an accomplice or obstruction I accept that. Just please understand that he is my husband."

"You're coming clean now," Rossi interjected. "That should help you if it comes to that. What interests us right now is if there's anything you tell us about what tipped you off."

"Well," Delores started, "I'm no detective, but it was mostly the way he acted every time a new boy went missing; especially after that Seaver woman showed up. Then I tracked back when the boys actually went missing and noticed those were always at times that Oscar was so busy with holiday stuff with the shop. So I guess I don't have proof of anything. But now you're here so I'm guessing that's why."

JJ's phone rang. It was Spence. JJ excused herself to take the call.

"Hey, JJ, have you and Rossi got anything over there?" He asked.

"Rossi's talking to the wife now." JJ replied. "She doesn't have much, but she has said that she's had her suspicions about Oscar for awhile now. What about you two? Do you have anything at the meat market?"

"Actually, yeah we do." Spence answered. "Forensics found a trace of blood in one of the sink drains; which might or might not be human, and we found a collection of newspaper clippings of the missing boys. Also, it looks like Oscar was ready to close the shop down; there's handmade signage saying so, but when we got here the doors were left unlocked."

"Well, that's not much, but it's a place to start, right?"

"Not just that, but under the clippings we found a receipt for a flight coupon to Tahiti. So far it looks like he got word of our investigation, got spooked and decided close up shop and get out of the country before we got too close."

"That sounds good, so far." JJ said. "If forensics can determine a match to one of the boys and the blood in that drain we have our UNSUB. It's not a great case, but it's enough to bring him in or try for extradition."

Spence was quiet for what felt like a full minute; JJ could almost hear the synapses in his brain firing and see how his eyes dart left and right when he's making those connections that nobody else can. It's like he's actually seeing the documented evidence in front of him, even when there's nothing physically there.

"Hold on a second, JJ." He said, and then he said something to Prentiss that JJ didn't quite make out other than the word 'meat'. She had an idea where this was going, and the thought of it caused her to throw up a little in her mouth. "JJ, can you do me a favor? I need you to find out if any of Oscar's products are at the house. If there is, we need to bring it in for analysis. We're doing the same here."

"Spence, are you saying what I think you are? Do you think..."

"I think he might have used the meat of his victims to stock his shelves; maybe even eating it himself."

The image of the photo in the information Garcia sent them eating her son filled her mind.

"Oh, my God," JJ groaned. She told Spence she'd let Rossi know and ended the call. She went back to where Rossi was interviewing Delores. She whispered annotated version of what Spence told her. Rossi nodded.

"Mrs. Coalworth, can I ask you something?" JJ asked Delores. "By any chance does your husband ever bring any of his work home with him?"

"Well of course he does." Delores answered. "What does that have to do with..." she paused as her thoughts put something together. "...oh...my...God, I think I'm going to be sick." She took a moment to compose herself. "The freezer is stocked full of meat from his market. Please, take it all; do whatever you want with it, just get it out of my house."


	12. Chapter 12 - 2 Days Later

_On the Jet_

The blood in Coalworth's sink matched that of Lucas Woolsmith, the last known missing boy. Some of the meat in the freezer also matched Lucas's DNA; most of the rest of it was unmistakably human, there was little doubt they would match up with the other boys. On top of that, much of the meat at the Coalworth house was human as well. Delores Coalworth vomited when she was told. She apparently suspected her husband had something to do with the boys, but had no clue he was eating and serving them to customers – or that he was feeding them to her. Senior SSA David Rossi felt bad for her.

Prentiss checked the airport. Tickets to Tahiti were purchased by Oscar Coalworth, but never picked up. That could mean a number of things. It could be he was picked up on something else, or it could mean he was dead somewhere, or it was possible the tickets are a misdirection. Given how much care this guy took over the decades, Rossi was thinking Oscar bought the tickets as a blind. This way, the investigation would have to look in one direction while he, Oscar, took off in some other direction, buying him some time to make a clean getaway. That would be a smart play, and an UNSUB doesn't elude detection for nearly thirty years by being stupid. Keeping his thoughts to himself, Rossi opted instead to watch the chess game.

"Is something on your mind, Spencer?" SSA Emily Prentiss asked Reid over the chess board between them. They had recently taken up playing each other on flights; much the same way Reid and Gideon had done back when Prentiss first joined the team. Despite Reid's genius IQ, Gideon usually won those games. These days, it was Reid who usually won; but not today. Today, Prentiss was definitely winning this round. If that didn't indicate that Reid was distracted in a big way, Dave had no idea what did.

Reid snapped to attention, clearly his mind was somewhere else entirely.

"It's just that I feel like we're leaving a job undone." Reid said. "I mean, sure we now know who was taking those boys, and what most likely happened to them, but we don't know where he is, or even have a clear reason why he was doing what he was doing. There's nothing in his history that would be a logical stressor that would lead to cannibalism or child molestation. It doesn't make any sense. Now I know it only has to make sense to him, but still...

"Maybe he's just evil." JJ suggested; she had been dead silent the entire trip so far. "I've been thinking about it the whole time; seeing that sick bastard grinning as he ate boys that looked like..." She paused to catch her breath. "That looked the way they did, and I can't help but think maybe there's such a thing as being born pure evil."

"I just can't justify that in my mind." Reid countered. "It's too easy." He glanced at the board and made a rushed move without a thought. It was precisely the wrong move for him to make if he wanted the game to continue; Prentiss made her move and called checkmate.

"Good game," Reid said, sounding a bit like an automaton, and got up to find a seat elsewhere to be on his own. A quick look around at the other team members, and Rossi could tell they were thinking what he was thinking; the kid doctor wasn't really thinking about Oscar Coalworth- or at least not exclusively. It was actually quite obvious he was deep in thought about something else again. Right now, though, smart money said the best thing was to let him keep it to himself; he'd share with the rest of the class soon enough.

For his part, Dr. Spencer Reid was quite well aware that the others on the jet were probably on to him. He doubted they knew what he was really focusing his thoughts on, but he also had little doubt they were keenly aware that it wasn't Oscar Coalworth.; or at least not entirely.

After visiting the Coalworth business and residence, the team decided to stay in Anaheim until it was confirmed that Coalworth was indeed their UnSub. That took two days; the DNA matched several of the missing boys, and almost immediately after that Seaver initiated a nationwide manhunt for Oscar Coalworth. It was a curiosity that Oscar had no history of abuse or trauma that would turn him into a cannibal and probable pedophile, but in reality that curiosity was of very little consequence to Reid at the moment.

What he was really thinking about was Dexter Morgan, and the peculiar way it seemed death and distress and misery surrounded him; even more than would be expected given his former profession. Even more compelling is his behavior; he seemed to be the epitome of what could be described as 'normal'. That was in itself eerie; it almost had to be an act, probably part of whatever Code was embedded into him. The question now was whether or not this 'Code' made Dexter into something awful, or if it was designed in response to the fact he was already awful.

Barnes already seemed satisfied with what they found to try to locate and monitor Dexter Morgan, but that didn't really make any sense, either; what interest did she really have in him? What was she up to?

 _San Diego, California_

 _It's been two days since Harrison and I had Oscar Coalworth on our table. Last night Harrison told me about a dream he had. In it, he saw a boy – a toddler – in a pool of blood beside a bathtub. In the bathtub, full of blood, he saw a dead woman; blonde and beautiful. Do I tell him that it was no dream at, but really a repressed memory of seeing his mother die? Do I reveal to him that he witnessed the final victim of Arthur Mitchell, the Trinity Killer? Just hearing about has brought up a lot of memories of my own: Rita herself, for starters, and of course Cody and Astor. What's strange is I find myself remembering the good things more than I do Rita's murder; like the way she had a way of bringing out the best of me –all of them did. I remember the taste of her Mango Salsa. I've also been recalling my own baptism in blood – so much like my son's._

 _Both of us were baptized in blood as we witnessed the brutal murder of our mother at an age where you would think we wouldn't remember any of it at all; him in the bathroom of his own home, our home, me in a shipping container. Both of us rescued by a man who hoped to spare us the introduction of an incurable darkness; I had Harry, he has me. Apparently both us- Harry and I- were too late, and now we both have taken a route that is meant to make the best of a horrible scenario. As Harry taught me, so I am teaching Harrison the Code. Harry told me for years that my parents died in a car crash. He lied to me in an effort to protect me. Is that the way to go? Harrison also told me that there was a priest with a sword in the dream. Is that Travis Marshal, the Doomsday Killer? Or is that some kind of personification of his Shady Co-host? Maybe it's both. Either way, I wonder if it's better to be completely honest with my son, or do I hide the truth from him – at least until he's a little older? If I tell him, will it traumatize him? Or would it be even worse to hold back?_

 _When he was on our table, Oscar described us as Predators like himself. He said I was teaching my cub. I suppose that's an apt description. I am a predator that hunts other predators; I always have been. Was Harrison meant to be what he's becoming all along? Or was my presence what turned him into a small version of me? Was it ever possible for me to compartmentalize my life and keep my Dark Passenger invisible to my son? Maybe Harry was right all those years ago; maybe I should have bailed on all of them from the start. Maybe I should have stayed away and let Hannah take care of him._ _After all, a wolf cannot teach his cub to be a lamb._

 _Then again, maybe this is a case of the damage being done. Maybe all I can do now is deal with what's in front of me right now. Maybe I should stop dwelling on the past and lamenting mistakes of long ago. It might be the best thing to do is to learn from the mistakes of the past; both Harry's and my own. If so, then the best thing to do would be to offer my son full disclosure of his past._


End file.
